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Tuesday, April 25. 2006

I see that Jane Jacobs has passed away, in Toronto, age 89. She
was an idiosyncratic thinker, one who made a big impression on me
by taking positions that were often contrary to my expectations.
Her book Dark Age Ahead has haunted my own thinking since
I read it last year. Her point that civilizations forget all the
time -- indeed, progress in learning is always an uphill struggle --
was both simple and profound. Her examples weren't necessarily the
best one could do, but plenty of other examples come to mind.

I read her first book, The Death and Life of Great American
Cities, back when I was deeply immersed in my Marxist studies
phase. I've always been a very slow reader, so the first course I
enrolled in when I belatedly went to college back in 1972 was a
speed reading course. The first book I tried reading with my new
techniques was Jacobs. I breezed through the book in about three
hours, and felt like I got it all. Next book I tackled was one by
Jürgen Habermas. Read it every bit as fast, and didn't get a word
of it -- can't even recall the title now. So I gave up on speed
reading, and went back to my slow slog through the Frankfurters.
But I never did make any sense out of Habermas, and Jacobs' view
of the disorderly denseness of urban life stuck with me, even if
I never reconciled hers with my other views.

Also read The Economy of Cities. Bought, but somehow never
got into, one or more of her other books: Cities and the Wealth
of Nations, Systems of Survival and The Nature of
Economies. So I still have stuff to learn from her, but that
would surely be true as well if all I were to do is to re-read those
books I read all too quickly already.

Isolated paragraphs from the New York Times obituary:

At a time when both common and inspired wisdom called for bulldozing
slums and opening up city space, Ms. Jacobs's prescription was ever more
diversity, density and dynamism -- in effect, to crowd people and
activities together in a jumping, joyous urban jumble.

Ms. Jacobs moved to Toronto in 1968 out of opposition ot the Vietnam
War and to shield her two draft-age sons from military duty. But she
quickly enlisted in Toronto's urban battles. No sooner had she arrived
than she led a battle to stop a freeway there.

Her major books followed a logical progression, each leading naturally
to the next. From writing about how people functioned within cities, she
analyzed how cities function within nations, how nations function with
one another, how everyone functions in a world of conflicting moral
principles, and, finally, how economies grow like biological organisms.

Patrick Pinnell, an architect associated with this school [Neo
Urbanism], said "Death and Life" represented almost the last expression
of optimism about American cities.

In an interview in Azure magazine in 1997, Ms. Jacobs recounted her
habit of carrying on imaginary conversations with Thomas Jefferson
while running errands. When she could think of nothing more to tell
Jefferson, she replaced him with Benjamin Franklin. "Like Jefferson, he
was interested in lofty things, but also in nitty-gritty, down-to-earth
details," she said, "such as why the alley we were walking through
wasn't paved, and who would pave it if it were paved. He was interested
in everything, so he was a very satisfying companion." Years later, she
realized that she had developed her talent of working through difficult
ideas in simple terms by practicing them on her imaginary Franklin.

She came to see prevalent planning notions, which involved bulldozing
low-rise housing in poor neighborhoods and building tall apartment
buildings surrounded by open space to replace them, as a superstition
akin to early 19th-century physicians' belief in bloodletting.

She perhaps perceived of herself as an intellectual adventurer ready
and able to follow her quixotic, often brilliant instincts into ever
more fascinating terrain. In "Systems of Survival," one of her characters
worries that he is not qualified. "Why not us?" replies the man who has
invited the group together. "If more qualified people are up to the same
thing, more power to them. But we don't know that, do we?"

One thing I got from Jacobs was a sense of the limits of trying to
rationalize cities, communities, life. That was a hard lesson to swallow
for me, someone who sometimes thought he might be happiest working as
an architect. Jacobs was a contrarian, a critic, an exception to the
rules, and to the rulers, but she was also in her own peculiar way a
systematizer, one who searched high and low for true rules. So she had
to be peculiar -- it's not like the straight rules ever really worked.

Monday, April 24. 2006

Nearing the end here. Shifted this week from prospecting to mop up,
going back and writing entries for several previously graded items.
Even wound up bumping two A- grades up to full A: Bernardo Sassetti's
Ascent (Clean Feed) and Alexander von Schlippenbach's Monk's
Casino (Intakt). Main thing left to do is the Dud. Column should
be done mid-week, Friday at the latest. Next week's prospecting post
will be the last under this column.

On the other hand, what happens once I turn the manuscript in
isn't at all clear. Village Voice Music Editor Chuck Eddy has been
fired. He's been a big supporter of the Jazz CG since its inception,
as has Doug Simmons, also fired. Robert Christgau is still employed,
but he tells me he won't be editing music pieces in the future, so
that affects me. The new Music Editor is Rob Harvilla, formerly of
East Bay Express. Don't know him, or anything about him. Haven't
had any contact. Don't even know if he's on the job. So at this
point it's harder than ever to say what the future will hold. I've
had a ball doing this column, but it's also been an insane amount
of work, and other things I could (and perhaps should) do never
seem to get done. Presumably we'll know more next week.

Lew Tabackin Trio: Tanuki's Night Out (2001 [2006],
Dr-Fujii.com): I've always thought of Tabackin as a tenor saxophonist,
but he lists flute first on his resume, and leads off with it here.
He plays flute on three of seven pieces. If you discount the covers
of "Body and Soul" and "Rhythm-a-Ning" that make up the encores that
would be a majority. Not that you'd discount them -- distinctive and
robust, they are standards only in name. Still, perhaps Tabackin is
right to advance his flute. For an instrument that tends to be light
and airy, he makes something substantial out of it.
[B+(**)]

Ugetsu: Live at the Cellar (2005 [2006], Cellar Live):
The Cellar is a jazz club in Vancouver -- as they put it, "often compared
to the Village Vanguard for its ambience and acoustics." The group name
appears to derive from a 1963 Art Blakey album title, although a famous
1953 Japanese movie lurks somewhere in the background. This particular
group is led by drummer Bernie Arai and alto saxist Jon Bentley and is
part of a strong Vancouver jazz scene. But it is completely distinct
from another Blakey-inspired Ugetsu, based in Europe and led by bassist
Martin Zenker and trumpeter Valery Ponomarev. The latter group has four
albums, including globetrotting stops in Shanghai and Cape Town, so the
potential for confusion is manifest. Group is a sextet, with trumpet,
trombone, piano and bass joining the leaders. It's a nice group, making
pleasant, enjoyable MOR jazz.
B

The Chad Makela Quartet: Flicker (2004 [2005], Cellar
Live): First thing that stood out here was trumpeter Brad Turner --
already noticed him as perhaps the strongest link in the Ugetsu group.
Makela plays baritone sax, a less flashy instrument, but even within
that context he isn't a particularly aggressive player -- not to say
he doesn't deliver in the end. The back end, bassist Paul Rushka and
drummer Jesse Cahill, also contribute, providing steady propulsion
that keeps the horns afloat.
B+(*)

David Berger & the Sultans of Swing: Hindustan
(2005 [2006], Such Sweet Thunder): "There is nothing more rewarding
than writing for a big band," Berger exults. He wrote five pieces
here and arranged the other eight. On the other hand, I've yet to
catch his enthusiasm. I do rather like the pieces with vocalist Aria
Hendricks, but the rest seems a little flat for someone who aspires
so obviously to Ellington.
[B]

Daniel Smith: Bebop Bassoon (2004 [2006], Zah Zah):
As advertised, no more, no less. Smith is well known in the classical
catalogue, but this is his first attempt to tackle a jazz program.
Starts with the jaunty "Killer Joe," then gets a bit tricker with
"Anthropology" and "Blue Monk." All ten songs are well known. The
bassoon gives them an odd sound, split by the double reeds. Seems
like a chore just to play, much less improvise in.
B

Metta Quintet: Subway Songs (2005 [2006], Sunnyside):
Second album by this group. The musician I'm most familiar with is
Marcus Strickland, but he's a newcomer this time, along with pianist
Helen Sung. The carry-overs are alto saxist Mark Gross, bassist Joshua
Ginsberg, and drummer H. Benjamin Schuman, who founded the JazzReach
Performing Arts & Education Association, which releases the group's
records. Don't have a good handle on this. It strikes me as a sort of
fancy postbop transmodernism -- lots of intricate pieces moving together,
impressively done but to what purpose? The subway theme is similar to
Randy Sandke's, but more backgrounded. Later.
[B+(*)]

Marc Mommaas with Nikolaj Hess: Balance (2005 [2006],
Sunnyside): Two solo pieces on tenor sax, the rest with Hess added on
piano. Very interesting from start to finish -- the sax cogent, with
a well measured tone, while the piano juxtaposes abstractly.
[B+(***)]

Dave Douglas: Meaning and Mystery (2006, Greenleaf
Music): This is the sort of record I don't much like, done by folks
too good to dismiss out of hand. Reportedly the third album by "this
quintet" -- Donny McCaslin replaces Chris Potter from The Infinite
(2002), but I'm not sure what the other one is, unless he's counting
the Bill Frisell-enriched Strange Liberation (2003 -- one of
the few Douglas albums I've missed). Uri Caine plays Fender Rhodes,
a bit like a Formula One driver whipping a monster truck around, a
skill that few have let alone make something of. James Genus and
Clarence Penn round out the line-up. As a composer, Douglas works
in his most complex, convoluted mode, which puts it way beyond what
I can follow, much less comprehend. As a trumpeter he is without
peer, as usual. McCaslin is, if anything, even slicker than Potter.
So it's a fucking tour de force. So what?
B+(*)

Diego Urcola: Viva (2005 [2006], CamJazz): This
is one of those records where after two plays I still have no real
idea what I've just listened to. That's certainly not a good sign,
but it's hard to say why. Urcola comes from Argentina, plays trumpet
and flugelhorn. His credits go back to 1991, including work with
Guillermo Klein, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Samuels, Jimmy Heath, Conrad
Herwig, Edward Simon, and Avishai Cohen (bass) -- all but Klein
return the favor here. Most of his credits count as Latin Jazz,
but despite the presence here of percussionists Antonio Sanchez
and Pernett Saturnino this one didn't strike me much one way or
another. Guess I need to give it another spin.
[B]

Sarah Hommel: A Sarah Hommel Drum All (2003 [2006],
Sahara Ford): Six percussionists, counting Bill Ware's vibes, marimba
and xylophone, doing pieces written or arranged by Hommel. Like all
drum orgy records, this must have been more fun to perform than to
listen to. The live sound strikes me as a bit subdued, especially at
a couple of points when someone -- presumably Hommel -- sings along.
But the vocals give it a little lift at the end, justifying the
applause.
B+(*)

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

Chris Potter: Underground (2005 [2006], Sunnyside):
Title piece isn't all that deep underground, but it's a good example
of how powerfully he can blow, and it gives guitarist Wayne Krantz
some space to boot. Then the record closes with "Yesterday" -- slow
almost to the point of unrecognizability, but it marks the return
of that thin pot-metal tone I've never cared for. The earlier tracks
are similarly mixed.
B+(**)

Dave Douglas: Keystone (2005, Greenleaf Music):
I held this back, figuring I should watch the DVD to see the 1916
Fatty Arbuckle film that Douglas wrote this music for. Didn't help
me a whole lot, but it's an interesting piece of silent slapstick.
The music suffers from the usual soundtrack taint, but DJ Olive
pushes the beats, Marcus Strickland can wail, and the most upbeat
material sweeps you away like Fatty and Mabel's cabin.
B+(***)

Jens Winther European Quintet: Concord (2005, Stunt):
Basic hard bop line-up, with Tomas Franck's tenor sax complementing
Winther's trumpet, Antonio Farao on piano, and most importantly Palle
Danielsson driving the bass line. Nothing unusual or special, but a
fine example of the archetype one thinks of first when asked to imagine
a first rate contemporary jazz ensemble.
B+(**)

Rabih Abou-Khalil/Joachim Kühn: Journey to the Centre of
an Egg (2004 [2006], Enja/Justin Time): Kühn is best known
in these parts for his duets with Ornette Coleman, but here he goes
further, playing alto sax as well as piano. Either way, he is an
attentive partner, pricking and prodding but never overwhelming
Abou-Khalil's surprisingly muscular oud. Jarrod Cagwin's frame
drums move things along, providing spare but effective propulsion.
A-

Ulf Wakenius: Notes From the Heart (2005 [2006],
ACT): This rather quiet, unassuming album has developed inito one
of my favorites. I reached for it first in a very stressful moment
and found it blessedly calming. Since then it's been a staple for
similar moments, and increasingly I've been noticing its melodic
charms. The music originated with Keith Jarrett -- more attractive
figures to base improvisations on than fully worked arrangements.
I'm not sure that Wakenius does much with them, but the simple
charms of his acoustic guitar suffice. Lars Danielsson and Morten
Lund complete the trio, with Danielsson playing a bit of piano
as well as bass and cello.
A-

Marc Johnson: Shades of Jade (2004 [2005], ECM):
Tough to rate records like this -- supremely accomplished, but
lacking the sort of tension that impresses you with how hard they
worked. The "they" is appropriate here: at the very least it
acknowledges Eliane Elias, who not only plays her usual lush
life piano but wrote most of the songs and even gets co-producer
credit along with the inevitable Manfred Eicher. According to my
best info, Johnson and Elias are married -- her marriage to Randy
Brecker is better documented, but evidently over. Johnson is a
notable bassist, presumably responsible for the lovely arco on
the doleful Armenian song that closes the album -- although it
sounds more like cello. The "they" also includes drummer Joey
Baron; organist Alain Mallet, not very conspicuous here; and
two others who hardly need introduction, especially when they
play so close to form: Joe Lovano and John Scofield.
B+(***)

Bill Bruford/Tim Garland: Earthworks Underground Orchestra
(2005 [2006], Summerfold): A 20th anniversary shindig for Bruford's
"particularly British sort of institution, this takes Earthworks pieces
from the first through last albums and scales them up to a largish
group of nine pieces, or ten when Robin Eubanks adds a second trombone.
Bruford strikes me as a supremely adaptable drummer -- before moving
into jazz he held down the drum seats in what seems like most of the
UK's famous prog rock outfits, but his jazz groups have little or no
fusion feel, and the groups with Iain Ballamy and Django Bates veered
toward the avant-garde. But this one builds around Garland, such a
slick, loquacious reedist-flautist that he's managed to get featured
billing. This one is fast and lush -- not my favorite combination,
but impressive when it all comes together.
B+(*)

World Drummers Ensemble: A Coat of Many Colors
(1996-2005 [2006], Summerfold): Four drummers -- Bill Bruford and
Chad Wackerman from the rock-jazz fusion world, Doudou N'Diaye Rose
from Senegal, Luis Conte from Cuba -- make a small subset of the
world, and one rather biased towards the north at that. Nonetheless,
N'Diaye seems to have the edge here, although Conte also contributes
to the hand drums. The trap drummers, on the other hand, start out
with a few ideas but eventually devolve into martial beats.
B

Friday, April 21. 2006

Tom DeLay was the Stalin of the Republican revolution. The
difference is we caught him in time.

The right-wing revolution started out as all revolutions start out:
as a piece of upper-class political theater that used the unwashed
masses as a stage prop, a pair of crossed pistols on the wall. It wa
salways absurd, this idea of a savage campaign against "elites" being
led by a poofy wordsmith like Rush Limbaugh, a Harvard fatty like
Grover Norquist, a dickless academic like Newt Gingrich, and a
diaper-dumping oligarch like George W. Bush. They were just another
band of mischievous aristocrats who played at being the voice of the
common man -- these new wingers sold themselves as the champions of
the fucked-over little guy, in this case the terminally frustrated
boobus Americanus, who for decades had been made to sit idly by
while ethnics stole his job, evil liberals mocked his religion and his
simple way of life, and media "elitists" shut out his views and sent
porn and married queers into his living room via the television
set.

What made Tom DeLay different is that Tom DeLay was a little
guy. . . . He came from the dirt of the South, with a drunken
reprobate for a father and nothing but white trash in his family
tree. . . . [He] dropped out of Baylor after being inveigled in a
childish campus-vandalism scandal. His pre-politics career as a rat
and bug killer was marked by a continual failure that has to be
considered shocking in a state so teeming with vermin: An exterminator
failing in southeast Texas is like a pimp failing in Bangkok during
tourist season.

Gingrich and Limbaugh only played at being an American loser; Tom
DeLay actually was one. . . .

In the Russian Revolution, Stalin was the penniless, crude,
tongue-tied seminary dropout kept in the movement as a hanger-on by
brilliant, swashbuckling orators and theorists like Trotsky, Lenin and
Bukharin, who all cynically pretended at fellowship with their darkish
brute ethnic comrade. Stalin knew better, and by the time he
solidified his grip on power, it was those same handsome intellectuals
who ended up crawling ont he floors of Moscow garages with bullets in
their livers. The famously vengeful DeLay was on the way to remaking
his party in the same way, disdaining charistmatic talkers like
Gingrich and Bob Livingston and replacing their type in the apparatus
of Washington -- not onlyin Congress but in the lobbies and the think
tanks, who were often forced to comply with his litmus-test hiring
preferences -- with his faceless, dependable, snake-mean Christian
cronies.

What was terrifying about DeLay was that he was the barking voice
of that afternoon talk-radio caller given full reign of Washington. He
was that same angry lout, not invoked and used by clever academics and
con men, but actually in charge: a narrow, selfish, envious,
mean-spirited prick who had the whole capital on its kneew. What kind
of man was he? He only went into national politics in the first place
because the federal government had banned a potentially carcinogenic
pesticide called Mirex that DeLay had used to kill ants. That was his
idea of injustice.

Same issue has a piece by Sean Wilentz assessing whether George W.
Bush is the worst president in US history. Haven't read it yet, but
you know the answer as well as I do. Notable that the title graphic
shows Bush and Cheney in black heist gear with the latter clutching
a pile of gold.

If you scan back through American history, one thing you notice
is how many mediocrities wound up in the White House, and another
is that the trend has mostly been downhill. The only post-WWII
presidents who had actually accomplished anything before they
got into politics were Carter and Eisenhower -- Reagan's acting
career doesn't count, since his presidency was an extension, and
trivialization, of his acting -- and both were diminished by the
job. Kennedy and Clinton may have thought of politics as a noble
public service, but for both it was also a tremendous ego trip,
not to mention a good way to get laid.

Still, one lesson of the modern age is that politics is a lousy
job. Otherwise, why is it that so many lousy people not only
gravitate toward it but wind up as its major success stories.
You'd think that a nation as successful as America clearly is,
with so many brilliant, dedicated, hard-working people, would be
able to support a respectable class of politicians and public
servants, but that doesn't seem to be the case. For most of
recent history, the powers in the private sector have muddled
through by controlling the politicians' purse strings, but
more and more narrow-minded con artists like DeLay, Abramoff,
Cheney and Bush have learned how to scam the system.

Chinese Prime Minister Hu shrewdly read this system in paying
his first respects to Boeing and Microsoft before making a rather
pointless, purely ceremonial curtesy call on Bush. He correctly
recognized that Bush isn't the leader of a great nation. He's
just the stooge who occupies the White House.

Wednesday, April 19. 2006

Tom Engelhart's report on the status of the
Bush
Administration starts with the poll numbers, then works its way
through various piles of dirty laundry. Amidst all this, one paragraph
strikes me as getting especially close to the heart of the matter:

What makes the last few years so strange is that this
administration has essentially been losing its campaigns, at home and
abroad, to nobody. What comes to mind is the famous phrase of
cartoonist Walt Kelly's character, Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he
is us." Perhaps it's simply the case that -- in Rumsfeldian terms --
it's hard for people with the mentality of looters to create a
permanent edifice, even when they set their minds to it.

The most suggestive word there is that nobody. Time and
again Bush has been able to act with little opposition and scrutiny,
yet still the policies crumple under the dead weight of their bad
design, or more pointedly their ill intentions. The other word to
note is looters. They seek to strip the government of its
mandate to serve and protect any sort of public interest. They do
this directly by curtailing government, indirectly by undermining
the tax base, and nefariously by turning into a monster of war and
inequity. They understand that their acts are unpopular, so as much
as possible they work in secret, and they cover their tracks with
lies and innuendo.

The puzzling thing about the Bush-Cheney Administration isn't
that ordinary befuddled white folks fall for their manipulations,
but that the rich do. Sure, some obviously profit from the loot --
the oil industry, defense contractors, a few others -- but most
businesses don't benefit from war, few benefit from the sinking
dollar or the negative savings rate or the increased exposure to
risk both natural and man-made.

Speaking of looting, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote the following
in the Apr. 20, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone:

Gale Norton stepped down as Secretary of the Interior on March
31st, ending her ferocious five-year assault on the lands and wildlife
she was charged to protect. A former lobbyist and lawyer for the
mining and timber industries, Norton made it her goal as secretary to
give away as many of our publicly owned resources as she could to the
energy, timber and mining interests, often for free or at fire-sale
prices. She opened tens of millions of acres of key wildlife habitat
to oil and gas tycoons, industrial logging barons and reckless
developers. She blocked hard-won plans to control the use of
snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and campaigned tirelessly to
open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. She
suppressed dozens ofscientific studies and punished scientists when
their findings challenged corporate profit-taking. She put polluters
and their lobbyists in charge of virtually all of the agencies that
are supposed to protect Americans from polluters. She even refused to
reprimand her deputy, the former mining and oil lobbyist Steven
Griles, after an investigation by the Interior Department's inspector
general found that he had doled out multimillion-dollar favors to his
former clients.

Now that she is leaving, Norton says she is setting her sights on
"the private sector." Her record suggests she has been working for the
private sector all along.

It's hard to recall anything that the Bush-Cheney Administration
has done that won't have to be undone once sanity returns. Not that
it's all that clear that sanity will return. But experience has shown
that trends that can't be sustained indefinitely won't be. Bush has
kept his political juggernaut afloat by converting public assets
into private favors. Those assets are finite.

Monday, April 17. 2006

Didn't get much done this past week, other than surviving to try
again next week. After I got back from hospital, I started out slow
with some old and only tangentially related boxes.

Ham Hocks and Cornbread: The Pounding, Pulsating Roots of
Rock 'n' Roll (1945-53 [2005], JSP, 4CD): Nothing more famous
here than Cecil Payne's "Ham Hocks," Hal Singer's "Cornbread," Joe
Houston's "Cornbread and Cabbage Greens," and Calvin Boze's "Safronia
B." Fewer than half are by names I recognize, many of them because
their careers slopped over into more conventional blues or jazz
territory. No classics either, even when a Jimmy Rushing or Joe
Turner or Little Richard shows up: this is the average matrix the
gem collections were extracted from, with the sameness of sax lick
after sax lick, blues shout after blues shout, boogie piano break
after boogie piano break. But sameness at this level of excitement
amounts to consistency.
B+(**)

Western Swing and Country Jazz: An Expertly Selected
Package (1935-40 [2005], JSP, 4CD): A mop-up operation, but
the most jazz-oriented of early western swingers -- Ocie Stockard,
Bob Dunn, Roy Newman, Jimmie Revard, Smoky Wood, Cliff Bruner, Swift
Jewel Cowboys, Modern Mountaineers (of "Everybody's Truckin'"
notoriety) -- have remained exceptionally obscure. One reason is
that western swing has been preserved as country music, but it
started with one foot and a trick elbow in jazz -- try sequencing
Django Reinhardt and Bob Wills for an object lesson. Deeper and
more problematic these days is the race crossing. I'm especially
struck by two versions of "Black and Blue" here -- all the more
painful for those of us who grew up on James Brown -- presumably
done by whites who have more black inside than they admit. Harry
Palmer, in particular, obviously worships Louis Armstrong -- as
do we all.
B+(***)

Bell Orchestre: Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light
(2005, Rough Trade): Québecois group, nominally classified as
Post-Rock/Experimental, related to the Arcade Fire, reportedly
influenced by Arvo Pårt and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Nothing
here suggests a jazz ontogeny, but with no vocals one can point
to some form of convergence. After all, even certified jazz musos
sometimes offer thoroughly composed pieces, and swing isn't de
rigeur unless you're narrow-minded enough to make it so. Still,
this strikes me as more of an attempt to fill the postclassical
void than anything else. The use of horns and drums reminds me of
classical music. The beat is more consistent, but not driving --
the intent is clearly to layer color and mood. Due to our habitual
focus on specialization, I don't normally listen to much music in
this vein -- AMG lists a half dozen "similar artists" but they're
all unfamiliar to me, excepting the ill-chosen Kronos Quartet --
which leaves me short of framework. This one I went out and got
because Christgau made it a Pick Hit. He may be right, but at this
point I'm inclined to caution.
B+(***)

Aki Takase/Lauren Newton: Spring in Bangkok (2004
[2006], Intakt): Just as I'm inclined to broaden the jazz search to
include the broad range of non-jazz instrumental music, I've become
increasingly skeptical about the jazz worthiness of so-called vocal
jazz. Clearly, most such records work out minor variants of (often
archaic) pop music. But there's nothing pop here. Newton's voice is
pure instrument -- at times horn-like, sometimes string-like, or even
beat-box, but rarely word-bound. (The exception is the semi-spoken
"Das Scheint Mir," in amusingly orchestrated German.) Takase's piano
is more than adequate accompaniment. Stark, abstract, beautiful in
its own strange way.
[B+(***)]

Saadet Türköz: Urumchi (2005 [2006], Intakt): Not
a jazz record, but on a jazz label. Türköz comes from East Turkestan
to Switzerland via Turkey. This album reverses the journey, recorded
in Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China. The instruments are local,
the songs traditional or originals in that mold -- mid-tempo or slow,
with sparse strings and haunting voice.
[B+(**)]

Reuben Hoch and Time: Of Recent Time (2006, Naim):
Recorded in a church in Florida by Ken Christianson, who seems to
have a reputation in audiophile circles. I know very little about
Hoch, the drummer and leader here, except that he has another group
called the Chassidic Jazz Project. This group is a piano trio with
Don Friedman and Ed Schuller. Hoch and Friedman wrote one tune each,
the others coming from post-'60s jazz stalwarts, on average a bit
left of center. Friedman has a strong reputation going back to the
early '60s when he was on Riverside's roster with Bill Evans. This
one sounds good, moves smartly.
B+(**)

Pete Malinverni: Theme & Variations (2005 [2006],
Reservoir): He's a pianist I have a high regard for. This is a solo
album, which for me at least is always a problem. It's also a virtual
clinic in the art, and it never loses interest or the ability to
please.
B+(*)

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

Gianluca Petrella: Indigo 4 (2004 [2006], Blue Note):
Italian trombonist, not yet 30 when this was recorded, with a couple
of unheard albums under his belt. Blue Note picked him up because
they're part of EMI's multinational megacorp and jazz is bigger in
Europe than in its homeland, and he's exactly the sort of prospect
that makes majors think jazz has a viable future: well studied but
eager to take that extra step and distinguish himself. The covers
are Ellington, Monk, Tony Williams, Sun Ra, and "Lazy Moon." The
originals weave in and out in complementary ways. As a trombonist
he draws on Roswell Rudd, which among other things means he doesn't
hesitate to get down and dirty. He also dabbles in electronics --
almost de rigeur these days, especially in Europe. He's complemented
here by Francesco Bearzatti on tenor sax and clarinet. The band's
one of those piano-less quartets, the two horns free to wheel and
deal, with Bearzatti taking advantage of his more nimble horns. But
despite his friskiness, Petrella stays within the boundaries of
modern postbop: he's an integrator, a constructive traditionalist.
B+(***)

Francis Wong: Legends & Legacies (1997 [2004],
Asian Improv): Two of Lawson Inada's poems detail the beginning and
the end of America's WWII internment of Japanese-Americans, while a
third testifies that the human spirit still offers "something grand."
Glenn Horiuchi's shamisen and Miya Masaoka's koto are the sounds
of the past, while tuba and Wong's reeds flesh out a jazz band
of the future, straddling the globe they came from. The odd piece
out is about police harassment of Latinos. For those who still
know history, that's nothing odd at all.
A-

Gutbucket: Sludge Test (2005 [2006], Cantaloupe):
I like the concept -- an electric guitar-bass-drums-sax quartet that's
racks up dense riffs and isn't afraid to get noisy -- but I wonder
whether they're too fancy, especially in the shifty time dynamics
that seem to be their main vector of idiosyncrasy. Reminds me of ye
olde prog rock when the least we can expect these days, especially
given the noise, is post-punk.
B

Anouar Brahem: Le Voyage de Sahar (2005 [2006],
ECM): The Tunisian's oud is less engaging and more atmospheric
than the Lebanese Rabih Abou-Khalil. The easy explanation might
be producer Manfred Eicher, who does tend to soften and blur,
but I suspect that Abou-Khalil frames his work more thoroughly
in the improvisatory tradition of Arabic music, which leads him to
look for similar qualities in his European collaborators. Brahem,
on the other hand, fits more snugly into European frameworks --
here working with piano and accordion from Provence, for a light,
folkish, but smooth mix. It is, at least, quite attractive.
B+(*)

Saturday, April 15. 2006

The lead story on the news recently as been the revolt of various
retired generals against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. One is
always tempted by the heuristic that the enemy of my enemy must be
a friend, but that's unlikely the case. It's unlikely that the peace
movement has a dog in that fight, as they like to say. The generals
certainly haven't converted to pacifism. The Democrats may like this
dispute more, since it question about Rumsfeld's competency tend to
leave more fundamental questions unexamined. Indeed, the generals'
revolt is most likely an attempt to salvage the military from any
responsibility for the debacle in Iraq. This repeats what happened
after Vietnam, when the military retrenched into its "professional"
guise, allowing it to recover its political credibility.

This is a profound misreading of history. What Iraq tells us now
is what Vietnam should have told us in the '60s: that military force,
regardless of how overwhelming it may appear, is a self-limiting and
self-damaging political tool, a dysfunctional absurdity. Rumsfeld
has two problems: one is that he has single-mindedly pursued the
accumulation of naked military power more aggressively than any past
Secretary of Defense, especially in his programs for militarizing
space and promoting tactical nuclear weapons; the other is that he
has exposed the folly of doing so by blundering into an actual war.
The military always looks most awesome when it isn't fighting, which
was its good fortune for most of the post-Vietnam period. On the
other hand, even such lopsided assaults as Panama and Iraq I bring
it down to human scale -- at least temporarily. The long, unraveling
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq expose the uselessness and sheer madness
of the military all the more thoroughly.

Judging from George Packer's recent New Yorker Letter from
Iraq, "The Lessons of Tal Afar" (April 10, 2006 issue; doesn't seem to
be online), the context for the generals' revolt is a debate within
the military between those who believe that a much smarter occupation
can still prevail and those who believe that Iraq is lost and the only
way to keep the military from losing as well is to redeploy as tactfully
as possible. Packer, for reasons more nuanced than George Bush but not
much more convincing, claims that the reoccupation of Tal Afar has been
a success and points the way, showing how more politically sensitive
military commanders might stabilize Iraq. That's hardly the only view
of Tal Afar -- Juan Cole listed it high in his list of the top ten US
blunders in Iraq in 2005. But both camps have plenty of axes to grind
with Rumsfeld, especially for the cavalier way Rumsfeld entered the war
and finessed and muffed the early occupation.

Calls for sacking Rumsfeld go way back. The problem with singling
out the Secretary of Defense is that it lets the President and his
policies off the hook. Rumsfeld no doubt acted with enough discretion
that he bears personal responsibility for many details of how the war
was actually prosecuted, but the overall direction of the war was set
by Bush -- at least in his name and with his approval. (In theory, the
policies could have been limited by Congress or the courts, perhaps in
recognition of international law, but that hasn't happened.) As long
as Bush knows what Rumsfeld is doing and countenances it, the one to
sack is Bush. If you're against the war, you start with Bush; if you
single out Rumsfeld, you're accepting the war and merely disagreeing
with its implementation. That was, lamentably, what happened back in
2004 when Kerry focused on the need to replace Rumsfeld.

This doesn't mean that Rumsfeld himself shouldn't be fired. He should,
and much more: he deserves to be brought before a war crimes tribunal,
along with his bosses and individually culpable subordinates -- some
names that come to mind include Wolfowitz, Feith, Cambone, Sanchez, and
Miller. That way we not only dispose of those figures; we do so in a way
that helps us to learn from their mistakes, much as the Germans and the
Japanese learned from the war crimes trials of their leaders. Short of
wholesale regime change, sacking Rumsfeld is just a matter of the war
party trying to sort out its own dirty laundry. They may indeed be
successful, especially if they can frame the case as negligence due
to arrogance, swagger, bluster -- the very things Midge Dichter so
swooned over back when Rummy looked like such a hot stud. I always
enjoy the arrogant being taken down a notch, so good luck to them.

Packer, perhaps inadvertently, has some interesting things to say:

A field-grade officer in the 101st Airborne said, "The algorithm of
success is to get a good-enough solution." There were, he said, three
categories of assessment for every aspect of the mission: optimal,
acceptable, and unacceptable. He made it clear that optimal wasn't in
the running. "We're handing a shit sandwich over to someone else," the
officer said. "We have to turn this over, let them do it their
way. We're like a frigging organ transplant that's rejected. We have
to get the Iraqi Army to where they can hold their own in a frigging
firefight with insurgents, and get the hell out." The Iraqi
national-security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who chairs a high-level
committee in Baghdad on American withdrawal, gave the same forecast
that was mentioned by a planner on General Abizaid's staff, at Central
Command: fewer than a hundred thousand foreign troopsin Iraq by the
end of this year, and half that number by the middle of 2007.

In other words, "conditions-based" withdrawal is a flexible
term. The conditions will be evaluated by commanders who know what
results are expected back in Washington. I suggested to Senator Chuck
Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, who has been a critic of the
Administration's war policy, that this sounded like a variation on the
famous advice that Senator George Aiken, of Vermont, gave President
Johnson about Vietnam, in 1966: declare victory and go home. "In a
twenty-first-century version, yes, probably," Hagel said. "It won't be
quite that stark." The Administration, he said, is "finding ways in
its own mind for backdoor exits out of Iraq." He added, "We have an
election coming up in November. The fact is, we're going to be pulling
troops out, and I suspect it'll be kind of quiet. We're going to wake
up some morning, probably in the summer, and all of a sudden we'll be
forty thousand troops down, and people will say, 'Gee, I didn't
know.'"

[ . . . ]

The pressure is partly driven by the strain on the military, and
partly by the fear that thousands of junior officers and senior
sergeants, who face future deployments, may quit if the war extends
many more years. Divorce rates among Army officers have doubled since
the war began. The Army is so short-staffed that it has promoted
ninety-seven per cent of its captains. "If you're not a convicted
felon, you're being promoted to major," a Pentagon official said.

This withdrawal looks just like Nixon's withdrawal from Vietnam.
It reduces the body counts -- both in service, where they're unable
to staff, and in body bags -- but it prolongs the war. It also sets
up the scenario for defeat, while postponing the event. In many ways
the real war the Bush Administration has waged is between the their
present corrupt power grab and the future. Surely they know there
will be some sort of reckoning -- with the debt, the trade balance,
the class balance, the job drain, the brain drain, global warming,
all sorts of things. They people who will pay the harshest price
for this cynicism will no doubt be the few Iraqis they lure to do
our bidding while we set them up for the fall. Same as with Vietnam,
except that compared to what we're seeing in Iraq, Ho Chi Minh was
an old-fashioned gentleman. While this line of retreat may go down
painlessly in easily-forgetful America, do you think any Iraqis who
plan on living their whole lives in their home country won't see
the writing on the wall?

Another quote:

Beyond the White House, various analysts have offered alternative
strategies, all of them based on the notion that 2006 is the year in
which Iraq's long-term future, for better or worse, will be
decided. Barry Posen, a political scientist at M.I.T., has offered a
more radical proposal than any officials have dared to entertain. In a
recent article in Boston Review, Posen concluded that a
unified, democratic Iraq is highly unlikely and that American
interests require a strategic withdrawal over the next eighteen
months. Posen is known as a foreign-policy realist; when I met him at
his office at M.I.T., he said, "I've been depicted as a villain. I
just want the American polity to consider all sides of the equation
before undertaking armed philanthropy." Posen has decided that America
can afford to leave behind a civil war in Iraq -- one that we will
"manage" on our way out, so that its result will be, in his words, "a
hurting stalemate." If one side seems about to win, the U.S. can tip
the board in the other direction. "We managed a civil war in Bosnia
from the outside," Posen said. "Whether we knew it or not, we were
generating a hurting stalemate." In the end, after much violence,
Iraq's factions will conclude that no one can win, and then they will
come to their own arrangement.

Posen's version of withdrawal is realpolitik with a vengeance,
offering the cold comfort of hardheaded calculations rather than grand
illusions, but it's difficult to imagine how America, without troops
in Iraq, could control events on the ground any better than it can
now. When I asked Posen about the moral obligation to Iraqis, who will
surely be massacred in large numbers without American forces around,
he replied, "No one talks about the terrible things that can happen if
we stay the course. The insurgents are trying for a Beirut
Marine-barracks bombing." He added that he doesn't imagine his ideas
will be heard in Washington. "These people are stubborn. A rational
person would think that they've learned something about the limits of
American power. They've learned nothing."

Hard not to close on that note. But nothing matters more than
that we learn the real lessons of this folly. After Vietnam we
settled just for the relative tranquility of peace, allowing all
sorts of hideous myths to fester. And that's how we got to Iraq.
We need to do better now that we got another clear cut example.

As it happens, the same issue of The New Yorker has a
cartoon that depicts near perfectly the Bush program for peace
and prosperity in Iraq, and for that matter the rest of the world:

If at first you don't succeed, bang it again. Show it who's boss.
The only way you can lose is if you give up.

Thursday, April 13. 2006

Seymour Hersh's New Yorkerpiece
on US planning for unprovoked military attacks on Iran hasn't showed up
in our mailbox yet, but it's already eliciting commentary. I read a
transcript of an Amy Goodman interview with Hersh earlier today, but
Billmon's post
is worth even more. Billmon calls his post "Mutually Assured Dementia,"
and goes on to speculate about possible reaction, both domestic and
worldwide, to an unprovoked nuclear first strike on Iran. To call
such a strike "preemptive" concedes way too much ground. Thus far, no
nation that has actually developed nuclear weapons has come close to
using them against the US. Iran is not necessarily even working on
nuclear weapons. And thus far the most aggressive act Iran has taken
against the US was to send a mob of students into the same US embassy
in Tehran that orchestrated the 1953 coup that ended Iran's democracy
and installed Shah Mohammed Reza, whose dictatorial regime had just
been overthrown.

Hersh's reporting to date has been dead on. He evidently has
extraordinarily reliable sources deep within the security aparatus,
and he manages to depict them as principled enough that one has to
conclude that there are still isolated pockets of sanity in the DOD
and CIA, even while the civilian political rulers are out to lunch.
So there can be little doubt but that such plans are actively being
worked on. Which raises two questions: 1) how can they be so demented?
and 2) why is there no significant political opposition to such plans?
As Billmon puts it:

But to the extent there is a rational excuse for treating a nuclear
strike on Iran as the journalistic equivalent of a seasonal story
about people washing their cars, it must be the cynical conviction
that the Cheneyites aren't serious -- they're just doing their little
Gen. Jack Ripper impression to let the Iranians know they really mean
business.

This may seem plausible -- that is, if you were in a catatonic
stupor throughout 2002 and the early months of 2003 (which is just
another way of saying: if you were a member in good standing of the
corporate media elite). But the rest of us have learned that when Dick
Cheney starts muttering about precious bodily fluids, you'd better pay
attention. He really does mean business, and when Dick Cheney means
business, bombs are likely to start falling sooner rather than
later.

Maybe the idea of the United States would launch a nuclear first
strike -- albeit a "surgical" one -- is too hard for most Americans,
including most American journalists, to process.

This raises an old question -- one that's entered my mind many times,
but for fear of transgressing
Godwin's Law
I've refrained from publishing. Yep, this has to do with Nazi Germany,
but please bear with me. My question is: At what point did a significant
number of Germans realize that Hitler and the Nazis were leading Germany
to doom and becoming a collective national embarrassment? Or, to put the
point more starkly, at what point did most Germans realize that Germany
would be better off to be unconditionally defeated in war? This latter
state certainly set in after WWII ended -- unlike the aftermath of WWI,
there were no significant number of sore losers in post-WWII Germany.
But did any significant number of Germans, beyond such obvious Nazi
targets as Jews and Communists, harbor such reservations before the
war started in 1939? Or before the war started to turn in Stalingrad?

I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect not. I suspect that
it's really difficult for people in a well aligned modern nation to
recognize when their leaders cross the line from being eccentric to
self-destructively insane. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are two
very good examples of this. The Soviet Union under Stalin and China
under Mao may be two more, and tellingly so because they only fell
out of favor after they had died and their successors had started to
admit and tried to repair the damage. There just seems to be a major
cognitive problem with a nation accepting the fact that its leaders --
even manifestly undemocratic ones -- are totally crackers, at least
while they're in power.

Now, I'm not saying that Bush is like Hitler or Stalin or Hirohito
or anything like that, nor that the Republicans are Nazis or Fascists
or the like. But their actual war in Iraq and their hypothetical --
gamed, or fantasized -- war against Iran are seriously demented. In
principle, a representative democracy should make it impossible for
such nutcases to achieve any significant level of power. Sometimes
that's even worked in the US, as when David Duke and Oliver North
lost elections in normally far-right states. But something is way
out of whack here: for starters, a mainstream media and a political
class that dares not challenge the President and his Administration
on matters as fundamental as war and peace, but also a populace that
can't begin to recognize a disaster until after it's already happened.
We may not be led by Nazis, but that doesn't mean we won't follow our
leaders until it is much too late.

Wednesday, April 12. 2006

Semi-strangers often write me notes that seem to go out of the way to
wish me good health. That may just be a curtesy I never got socialized
enough to appreciate, but sometimes I wonder what they know, or whether
they're reacting to something I've said in passing and mostly forgot.
"How are you?" is another one -- on a bad day most likely to elicit a
biting response than the usual good natured slough off. Actually, I've
been remarkably healthy all my life, especially for one who has put so
little effort into it. But I'm 55 now, and I've collected some symptoms
of my family's customary grim reaper. So when I experienced chest pains
Monday afternoon, I let my worries get the best of me, and went to see
my cardiologist -- who didn't have time to see me, but checked me into
a hospital for tests. A little over 48 hours later I'm back home -- my
initial complaints have now faded into a hazy background of new damage
caused by the tests and the rigors of patient life in modern hospitals.
The good news is no evidence of cardic blockages that could have caused
the chest pain. I'm told the pain could have been caused by thousands
of other sources, but in ruling out my heart they've ruled out the one
that could bring me to an end most immediately. So once again I'm lucky
in health.

Meanwhile, I've gotten nothing done, except for finishing Richard
Manning's far-reaching Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has
Hijacked Civiliation, and starting Gareth Porter's Perils of
Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
Manning stalks his subject like the hunter-gatherer he aspires to
be. Having no taste for hunting myself, I tend to start from the
assumption that agriculture is a given -- how else can six billion
people coexist? But he raises an insightful question when he asks
why one would choose a life of agriculture over hunting and gathering.
As he points out, the latter is fun, while agriculture is back-breaking
hard work. This sort of basic insight is similar to the one he revealed
in Grasslands when he described fallow farmland as a clearcut
grassland. Agriculture leads not just to more work but to worse health.
It does support more people, surpluses even, which in turn lead to
hierarchical societies, accumulation of wealth, spread of poverty, war,
and empire. But closer to home, he gets into the history of processed
food, the industrial expanse of commodities (corn, wheat, rice, sugar),
the politics of subsidies and the subsidization of politics. One of the
most striking points he makes is that the only ideas that attract any
development funding are ones that lead to selling more products. This
makes for an additive model: more fertilizers, more pesticides, more
of whatever accomplishes more growth. Makes me wonder something I've
been wondering quite a while, which is whether growth is worthwhile.
If you start to have doubts there, lots of things come into doubt --
including most of economics.

Meanwhile, I've lost three days of doing what I do -- no progress
on any of my writings, no records rated, haven't even opened my mail.
All because of a niggling concern with my own personal health.

Monday, April 10. 2006

In theory I should be closing down this column. I have enough new
jazz records rated to fill out a healthy column. I have notes on them
all -- the finished reviews only come to a bit more than half way,
but it shouldn't be too hard to flesh out the rest. Made a big push
this week to sort through the incoming. Not much left there except
for advances and reissues. Looks like 30-40 prospected but unrated
records on that shelf, most of which are marginal and can be put off
for next time. A week ago I said I could be done in two weeks. Still
looks like it could be two weeks, but no more.

Sathima Bea Benjamin: Musical Echoes (2002 [2006],
Ekapa): A set of carefully measured standards sung by the South
African vocalist, in a return to Capetown after a long exile.
The pianist and co-producer is Stephen Scott, in fine form. The
others are South Africans: bassist Basil Moses, whose clear pulse
is one of the highlights, and drummer Lulu Gontsana. Well done,
and welcome to anyone who remembers her early work with the former
Dollar Brand and their surprise mentor, someone named Ellington.
B+(*)

Karen Blixt: Spin This (2006, Hi-Fli): This album
contrasts rather sharply with the Erin Boheme one. The similarities
include a shuttling in and out of guests and a few originals (with
co-writers) slipped in amongst the standards. Also a fairly generous
booklet with a lot of photography. On the other hand, the hair, makeup
and photography budgets are far removed. Boheme has the more intriguing
voice, but it's clear that her corporate sponsors selected her as much
for her looks, which became the focus of their marketing campaign.
I wouldn't describe Blixt as ugly, but plain isn't far off the mark,
and her voice isn't much above that. But she also appears much happier
in her photos, and that carries through to the album. Her guests are
more fun, too -- especially organist Joey DeFrancesco, who also takes
a duet vocal on a cheery "When You're Smiling." It also helps that the
covers are old friends -- it's not like we need another "Night and
Day," but it's always welcome.
B+(**)

Jamie Davis: It's a Good Thing (2005 [2006], Unity
Music): The new singer for Basie's ghost band splits the difference
between Little Jimmy Rushing and suave Joe Williams. The band carries
on the late testament tradition -- an orchestra of overwhelming brass
with no rough spots or standout soloists, but the harshness of the
"atomic" era sound has been ironed out. They may be anonymous as
individuals, but they've never been more comfortable as a unity.
Package includes a "Making Of" DVD. Haven't watched it, but might
be fun.
B+(***)

Bob Belden: Three Days of Rain (Original Soundtrack)
(2001 [2006], Sunnyside): This ties into a film directed by Michael
Meredith, loosely based on six Chekhov stories set under continuous
rain in present-day Cleveland. The film came out in 2002, possibly
just to festivals, then was picked up by Wim Wenders for limited US
release in late 2005. Belden composed the pieces, but doesn't play.
His saxophonist of choice, Cleveland-native Joe Lovano, appears on
five cuts -- one a clarinet solo. Belden builds around two piano
trios: one led by Kevin Hays aims for low barometer atmospherics,
with Lovano and/or trumpeter Scott Wendholt joining in; the other
led by Marc Copland gets a slightly edgier sound. One more piano
piece is "End Title," a solo by Jason Moran which closes the film
and record on an uncertain note. My uncertainty concerns the easily
clichéd motifs of dark, dreary rain. I'm sure this is appropriate
to the film, but why care about such a single-minded mood on record?
For one thing, it's well done.
[B+(***)]

The Eddie Daniels Quartet: Mean What You Say (2005
[2006], IPO): Plays clarinet and tenor sax. I'm not familiar with his
work, which goes back to a 1966 album and includes a stretch with the
Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. He appears to have had some pop items
in his closet, but this one is solidly mainstream, benefitting from
a rhythm section that guarantees its interest: Hank Jones on piano,
Richard Davis on bass, Kenny Washington on drums. Starts with a Thad
Jones piece, continuing with a range of bop-to-swing standards and
one original. Solid playing throughout.
B+(*)

Chris Walden Big Band: Winter Games (2006, Origin,
EP): Actually just a 3:52 single ("full version"), followed by a 3:10
"radio edit." The theme is attractive enough, but the orchestration
is neither as clean nor as dirty as I'd like, and it's all section
work -- no individual development. If I had to deal with a full album
like this I'd probably bury it with a middling grade -- unless it got
to be really annoying. But given my system singles are annoying by
definition.
C

Bobby Previte: The Coalition of the Willing (2005
[2006], Ropeadope): Easy to tell this is a drummer's album -- the
drums are mixed up front and plenty loud. Easy to classify it as
fusion too, with Jamie Saft's keyboards and Charlie Hunter's guitars
the usual instruments, and both doubling on electric bass. Previte
gets extra help on drums from Stanton Moore. Also on hand is Stew
Cutler on harmonica and slide guitar, Steven Bernstein on trumpets,
and Skerik on saxes. In effect, Previte has swallowed Garage à Trois
[Hunter, Skerik, Moore] whole -- their own Outre Mer album
is as tuneful a piece of fusion as I've heard in several years, but
much lighter than this armada. Still undecided whether all the extra
firepower is worth it, but this has some promise. Unlike another
"coalition of the willing" you might recall.
[B+(**)]

François Carrier: Travelling Lights (2003 [2004],
Justin Time): The artist sent this along for background along with
his new Happening. The quartet includes pianist Paul Bley,
bassit Gary Peacock, and drummer Michel Lambert. Carrier, on alto
and soprano sax, is a good deal younger than that group. In these
improv pieces, named for continents and geographical concepts like
"Sea" and "Island," he plays cautiously, often deferring to Bley
and Peacock, who are in exceptional form. I liked Carrier's earlier
album Play quite a bit, although it was little more than a
thoroughly modern sax trio on the road. This shows more depth --
could rate higher with some more careful listening, but for these
purposes it's just background.
B+(***)

François Carrier: Happening (2005 [2006], Leo, 2CD):
Spacious avant improvs, set for dancers or something to happen. The
leader's alto or soprano sax is set against Mat Maneri's viola and
Uwe Neumann's exotica -- sitar, sanza, Indian talking drums -- as
well as bass and drums. The combination is striking and seductive.
[A-]

Ben Allison: Cowboy Justice (2006, Palmetto): Don't
have recording dates -- one of those little details squeezed off the
cheapo promo Palmetto hands out. The group here is a quartet with
Allison on bass, Jeff Ballard on drums, Steve Cardenas on guitar,
and Ron Horton on trumpet. Two takes on "Tricky Dick" -- that would
be Cheney -- frame the album, while "Midnight Cowboy" was plucked
from the movie soundtrack and given new significance. As a politico,
Allison isn't as far out as Charlie Haden, but as a bassist and
composer he's very much in the game. Cardenas is especially fine
here, and Horton is terrific, especially on the chatter-happy
"Talking Heads."
[A-]

The Roy Hargrove Quintet: Nothing Serious (2006,
Verve): Then why bother us with it? Loose-limbed hard bop, with
Justin Robinson racing the scales on alto sax, and Ronnie Matthews
tinkling ivories. Bassist Dwayne Burno's "Devil Eyes" caught my
ear, as did the closer, where Slide Hampton bum rushes the stage
for a 'bone solo, and everyone else gets their licks in. I'm torn
here between being moderately amused by the harmlessness of it all
and somewhat annoyed by the waste. Probably not worth knocking as
a dud, but when I see a guy's mug on the cover of Downbeat,
I suspect a candidate is heading my way.
[B]

The RH Factor: Distractions (2006, Verve): This
is Roy Hargrove's funk diversion -- the second such album, if
memory serves. The off-handed title refers to four pieces, each
numbered, that serve as instrumental interludes. The rest have
vocals, credited to Hargrove and Renee Neufville, except for one
shot that D'Angelo dropped in for. Much of this sounds warmed
over, but one called "A Place" bears a pretty slick P-Funk brand.
[B+(*)]

Duke Robillard: Guitar Groove-A-Rama (2006,
Stony Plain). For some reason jazz magazines from Downbeat
to Cadence have a side-interest in blues, establishing an
affinity that hasn't really existed over the last 30-40 years --
not since blues shouters like Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon
and Jimmy Rushing fronted jazz bands. Since then the blues genre
has narrowed down into a main stream of guitar slingers who make
up a narrow, conservative genre under rock, plus a couple of creeks
off to the side for folkie-musicologists like Taj Mahal and soul
holdovers like Etta James and Solomon Burke. I've wondered whether
about slipping a straight blues record into my jazz guide, and
actually did once, with Billy Jenkins' When the Crowds Have
Gone. But that was pretty far out in left field. James Blood
Ulmer's Birthright tempted me -- like Jenkins, Ulmer's
catalog is for the most part solidly positioned as jazz. I don't
get much blues, but I figure when I do get something there's no
harm in at least prospecting it, even if it's unlikely it will
qualify for the jazz guide. Robillard is a comfortable mainstream
guitar slinger. He paid his dues with the Fabulous Thunderbirds
and Roomful of Blues before going solo. He's got nothing much to
say, but he's happy to be here, happy to be the end of the title
cut's jukebox history of the blues, which started with his best
Muddy Waters impersonation and worked its way down the ages.
B+(*)

World Drummers Ensemble: A Coat of Many Colors
(1996-2005 [2006], Summerfold): Four drummers make for a rather
small subset of the world. Bill Bruford and Chad Wackerman have
rock roots and jazz moves with slightly jiggered but conventional
kits. Luis Conte adds a taste of Cuba with congas, timbales, and
cajon. Doudou N'Diaye Rose represents Africa, or more precisely
Senegal -- percussion, like the human gene, is more varied in
Africa than in the rest of the world combined, so representation
isn't exactly possible. But Cuba and Senegal have a distinctive
bilateral cross-development, so the hand drums blend together
into a flexible core for the others. This works as well as any
similar project I've heard -- Art Blakey and Max Roach tried to
put together cross-cultural drum suites circa 1960, so it's not
all that new an idea. On DualDisc, with two pieces only on the
DVD side, so I haven't heard them.
[B+(**)]

Nachito Herrera: Bembé En Mi Casa (2005, FS Music):
All bembé, no siesta here -- this is Afro-Cuban jazz at its most
aggressive. The first piece in particular, called "Song in F" and
described as Latin jazz, goes way beyond my ability to parse or
track or make any sense of. It's built from multiple rhythm motifs,
overlayed in ways that make no sense to me. Other pieces are built
around traditional styles -- danzón, bolero, guaguanco, guaracha,
cha-cha -- making them simpler, easier to follow. Herrera plays
piano. The group is a sextet with electric bass, sax, trumpet,
and percussion -- congas, timbales, drums. A lot of action for a
relatively small group. Too much?
B+(**)

Oscar Castro-Neves: All One (2006, Mack Avenue):
A veteran Brazilian guitarist -- his credits go back to the '60s,
including a song "Morrer de Amor" written in 1965 and reprised
here with Luciana Souza singing. This album takes a grand tour
through his life and work, but it is never more engaging than
when his guitar is out front. Gary Meek adds the flighty flutes,
clarinets and saxes you expect. Souza sings two pieces, but his
own rough vocal on "The Very Thought of You" is more touching.
B+(**)

Industrial Jazz Group: Industrial Jazz a Go Go!
(2004 [2006], Evander Music): The previous record by Andrew Durkin's
group confused me with its intricate scoring and fancy counterpoint --
what's industrial about that? This one feels like they've had a Sex
Mob transplant, but it's still on the fancy side. The most prominent
sources, cited in "Apologies/Thanks To" along with Dion and Elmore
James, are Perez Prado and Oliver Nelson -- that should give you a
good idea what this sounds like, and not just for the three pieces
with Spanish titles. Durkin plays piano, but the seven horns are so
domineering you rarely hear him.
B+(***)

Randy Sandke and the Metatonal Big Band: The Subway Ballet
(1988-2005 [2006], Evening Star): Sandke's metatonal harmonic theory is
over my head -- something about overlaying harmonics slightly off from
the usual ones, which makes his music a bit odd and a bit dangerous. No
surprise that someone interested in harmonics should gravitate toward
big bands. That there is no piano may just mean that he isn't interested
in getting his harmonics cheap. Whatever. The unchoreographed ballet is
conceived of as a subway trip from Brooklyn Heights to Harlem, which is
good for encounters with a range of possible dancers: downtown punks,
Wall Street brokers, Hassidic diamond merchants, a blind beggar, a
Korean peddler, midtown career women. You can sort of guess the music
that goes with each, but remember that it will be a bit odder and more
dangerous. The high point arrives with the Hassids, who here at least
include David Krakauer. The end, which moves out onto the street, is
less obvious. It also doesn't fill the whole disc, so Sandke tacked
on four cuts from an unreleased 1988 album with supposed metatonal
emanations, but the smaller bands -- two cuts are just Sandke with
drum machine, and two find him playing guitar instead of brass --
make the harmonics less obvious. Last cut sounds like an outtake from
Pink Floyd.
[B+(***)]

Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra: Negra Tigra
(2005 [2006], ILK): The jungle this time is Vietnam, which appears
most clearly in "Vietnam Xong" and "Streets of Ha Noi" -- the usual
oriental motifs appear much like in Billy Bang's first Vietnam
record, but with horns dominant. Five interludes are versions of a
boisterous piece called "Negra Tigra," the last one erupting in a
shout of "anybody seen that tigra?" in a clever loop back to the
Original Dixieland Jazz Band. This record marks the 25th anniversary
of Dørge's big band -- what a long, strange trip it's been -- and
this is the most avant I've heard them. Much credit for that no
doubt goes to the guest this time, trumpeter Herb Robertson.
[B+(***)]

Fattigfolket: Le Chien et la Fille (2005 [2006],
ILK): Swedish/Norwegian quartet, with trumpet (Gunnar Halle) and
alto sax (Hallvad M. Godal) up front, bass (Putte Frick-Meijer) and
drums out back (Ole Morten Sommer). Godal and Frick-Meijer do most
of the writing. First half of the album is calm, measured, rather
haunting, after which they kick up the heat a bit. Don't know much
more, but worth listening to further.
[B+(**)]

Francisco Pais Quintet: Not Afraid of Color (2004
[2006], Fresh Sound New Talent): It took a while to get the feel
of this complex postmodern cool or whatever. Pais plays guitar,
layered intricately with Leo Genovese's keyboards and Chris Cheek's
reeds. One cut I noticed each time through was "Transfiguration,"
partly because the pace picks up a bit, but mostly due to Ferenc
Nemeth's drums.
B+(*)

Odean Pope Saxophone Choir: Locked & Loaded: Live at
the Blue Note (2004 [2006], Half Note): Pope's Saxophone
Choir includes a piano-bass-drums rhythm section, so in many ways
it's more like a big band than any of the sax-only ensembles. No
brass cuts down on the color, but with nine saxes here -- five
tenor, three alto, one baritone -- not counting guests he has a
lot of options. The guests are Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, and
James Carter -- the latter featured on the high-powered closer,
a choice cut called "Muntu Chant."
[B+(*)]

Anita O'Day: Indestructible! (2004-05 [2006],
Kayo Stereophonic): Well into her 80s, she doesn't swing as hard
as she used to, and her voice is more gone than not, but she
inspires a couple of near-faultness bands. Roswell Rudd rumbles
on three tracks, including "Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer."
Joe Wilder stands out on the other tracks. O'Day's post-prime
recordings have always been a matter of taste and sentiment:
you have to like her a lot to see past the decline. But I, for
one, can't see not liking her.
B+(**)

Rhett Miller: The Believer (2006, Verve Forecast):
I don't know what the mission statement of this subdivision of UMG's
putative jazz division, but it doesn't seem to be jazz. I think this
is the first album they've released in the last two years that they
didn't send me, and the first that I actually wanted. It's not jazz --
not even as close as Blue Note's post-Norah prestige signings of Al
Green and Van Morrison. But it's a pretty good pop album, with a
couple of songs -- including "Singular Girl" and "I'm With Her" --
better than that, and others not quite.
B+(***)

Roy Nathanson: Sotto Voce (2006, AUM Fidelity):
This got me to wondering whether there's ever been two great jazz
versions of a pop song as annoying as "Sunny" before. The other
one is on Billy Jenkins, True Love Collection, which is
full of '60s pop tripe turned into avant psychedelia. Here it's
just one of nine stops that I'm having trouble making sense out
of -- some jive, some poetizing, something Brechtian, a story
about a guy shooting his finger off to escape from a war. The
monotone wordplay is always up front, the fractured blips of
sax, violin and trombone flying off to the side. I like the
music quite a bit, especially on the rare occasions it gets
intense. The voce I'm more ambivalent about.
[B+(**)]

The Bennie Maupin Ensemble: Penumbra (2003 [2006],
Cryptogramophone): The booklet claims that the last song was recorded
on Dec. 11, 2006. Last time I checked, that's still eight months into
the future. That's the second such typo I've found this week. Folks
in the future are going to get plenty confused by things like this,
but the more alarming problem is that this sort of sloppiness seems
to be steadily growing. It's worth noting that the Voice doesn't do
any fact checking on my Jazz CG or on Christgau's CG, and doesn't do
much fact checking anymore on anything else either. I've made a few
mistakes I know about, and I've caught a few of Christgau's on their
way to his website. It's a neverending struggle to get such basic
info right, and it pays to be as much of a stickler as possible,
but it's a drag cleaning up other people's messes, too. As for the
record, this strikes me as similar to Charles Lloyd's ECM efforts --
it's like at a certain age one decides to do whatever you feel like
and not worry how it fits into your style or sound or career path
or whatever. This has a very open feel, in large part designed so
bassist Darek Oleszkiewicz comes through clearly. The beats come from
Michael Stephans' drums and Daryl Munyungo Jackson's percussion for
a loose, worldly mix. Maupin plays reeds and a bit of piano, with
bass clarinet most prominent, and his tenor sax actually sounding
like Lloyd. An attractive, low key album.
[B+(**)]

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: One and the Same (2005
[2006], Cryptogramophone): Gauthier plays violin, often electric
with effects. Guitar (Nels Cline) and bass (Joel Hamilton) add to
the string resonances, while keyboards (David Witham) and drums
(Alex Cline) don't overwhelm them. The tempos tend to race, but
there's little density, and the violin never tightens up the way
someone like Billy Bang plays. So this doesn't sound like a lot
is happening, but it's appealing nonetheless.
B+(*)

Joe Locke & Charles Rafalides: Van Gogh by Numbers
(2005 [2006], Wire Walker): Seems like a very limited concept at first:
duets between vibes and marimba. But while the sonic palette is narrow,
especially with the marimba setting the pace, and this takes a while to
get in gera, it does develop into a pleasing complexity.
B+(*)

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

The Mary Lou Williams Collective: Zodiac Suite: Revisited
(2000-03 [2006], Mary): Williams bridges the swing and post-bop eras,
not conceptually but as someone who's been there, done that. The
Zodiac Suite itself dates from 1945, and was part of a movement
from danceband jazz toward "America's classical music," very much in
parallel with Ellington's initial interest in suites. Arranged for
piano trio, this suite makes for engaging chamber music -- people
like Fred Hersch do this sort of thing nowadays, but Williams was
decades ahead of anyone else. Without recourse to the original, I'd
guess that the main thing Geri Allen and Buster Williams add here
is state of the art sonic presence. The whole project is too humble
to expect much more.
B+(*)

The Dutch Jazz Orchestra: The Lady Who Swings the Band:
Rediscovered Music of Mary Lou Williams (2005 [2006],
Challenge): Historically notable as an effort to put unrecorded
charts to music. If it sounds exceptionally Ellington-esque, one
reason may be that the Dutch Jazz Orchestra has made a cottage
industry out of Billy Strayhorn. Another is that Williams wrote
several of these arrangements for Ellington right after Strayhorn
died. Not sure this transcends its historical significance, but
it sometimes comes close. Francis Davis wrote about this and the
Zodiac Suite album in the Voice.
B+(**)

The Derek Trucks Band: Songlines (2006, Columbia):
Enough interesting idea here to make me think an interesting album
is possible, even if not necessarily in the works. Pieces by Roland
Kirk, Toots Hibbert, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, as well as some trad
blues. The vocals wander some -- the leader doesn't sing, but several
band members do, making for a curious eclecticism.
B+(***)

Ahleuchatistas: What You Will (2005 [2006],
Cuneiform): Punk rockers who listen to Charlie Parker too much --
check the name -- and evidently don't know anyone up for singing.
I'm not much for vocals either, but when you lay out titles like
"Remember Rumsfeld at Abu Ghraib," "Ho Chi Minh Is Gonna Win!"
(reality check: he did), "Last Spark From God," "What Are You
Gonna Do?" -- these could use some more development.
B+(*)

Sunday, April 9. 2006

People who complain about Mexican flags at demonstrations are
forgetting that Italian flags are carried at Columbus Day parades,
Irish flags are carried at St. Patrisk's Day parades, and Israeli
flags are carried at pro-Israel parades.

Either people are forgetting that, or there is prejudice against
Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Grow up.

LAURA TILLEM
Wichita

The letter was included in a section called "Reader views: immigration,"
following a letter harping on Mexican flags.

Friday, April 7. 2006

I got the following lette from a reader, Peter Su. Thought it best
to try to answer his questions here, and start with the letter:

After we executed worshippers in a Sadr City mosque
one week and sent Rice to pressure Jaafari to step
down the next, I'd started suspecting, even before
reading "Iraq In and Out of the News," that we were
intentionally keeping Iraq in chaos to keep their oil
off the market.

Then, scrolling up, I find you've already discarded
the pseudo-conspiracy theory after reading Schwartz on
TomDispatch. But after finishing both your "It's the
Economy, Stupid" and his piece, I can't find anything
in either to explicitly reject the notion of Bush
intentionally failing in Iraq; as you say, "that
theory fits the evidence well enough."

The closest I found was the reporting of a brief
post-invasion boom in Iraq, before the shit really hit
the fan. Since that sort of empty, dangerously
inflated boom prosperity seems economic dogma among
Bush's kind, do you mean that, if they were really
trying to wreck Iraq to keep it off the market, they
would have implemented policy that THEY thought would
fail (and, who knows, might actually have worked?). Or
am I missing something between the lines that a better
educated reader would infer?

If the latter, and if your time and inclination
permits, would be grateful to see a post from you on
why our failure in Iraq was more via incompetence than
intent. I'm reasonably well-read, so if I missed some
economic inference in both the TomDispatch piece and
your own, I don't think I'd be the only one who would
especially appreciate its explication.

I did shift gears between the two posts -- a mere day apart -- in
response to the new (or poorly remembered) data that Schwartz brought
up. As both posts argue, ever since the Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003
the net effect of US policy has been to damage Iraq: in particular, to
undermine the bonds of civil society, in turn wrecking Iraq's economy
and dramatically reducing living standards. The question is whether
this effect had been Bush's intent all along. Intent is always hard
to establish -- all the more so given the secrecy under which Bush et
al. developed their policies and the deliberate confusion caused by
their many false statements about what they wanted to do and why.

It seems to me that intent is worth discussing, but it has two
distinct sides. One is that there is a distinct political need now
to try to nail down what America's intent is in Iraq. Bush has been
very slippery in this regard -- indeed, it often looks like they're
making it up as they go along. If we can start to nail this down, we
can start to assess progress (or lack thereof) and start to rationally
adjust the tactics and/or the goals to reality.

The other is historical: what was the real intent at the moment
they decided to invade? I suspect that the answer there is a cluster
of ideological views that center around the idea that the US has
ought to assert its power more aggressively to remake the world in
our image. The most succinct expression of this was formulated by
Madeleine Albright when she called the US "the indispensible nation";
she in turn drew on a long legacy of self-flattery known as American
exceptionalism and the mythic aura of "the American Century" -- how
American economic vitality and military prowess increasingly loomed
over the world throughout the 20th century. This core idea spawned
two main ideological threads: the economic doctrine of neoliberalism
and the political doctrine of neoconservatism. Both were rooted in
the Cold War, and reflect its twin axes: neoconservatism was directed
against political foes, above all the Soviet Union; neoliberalism's
enemy was any political support for the working class or the world's
poor. Both doctrines ultimately depended on self-deceptions: the naked
pursuit of self-interest required a cloak of high moral principles,
which the neos appropriated almost indiscriminately. By focusing so
tightly on their faith, they in turn developed a blindness to the
world around them, especially to how adverse effects that followed
application of their theories.

Neoliberalism is actually the broader framework, in that it mostly
works through seduction with only a hint of force. The masters of
capital offer debt to developing countries, then demand concessions
when the debt cannot be serviced. The concessions typically grant
further private access and control to capital while undermining any
efforts to build self-sufficiency, leading to cycles of debt and
disaster while capital extracts its profits. The least productive
of all such loans are those stolen by elites and recycled as the
local elites join the rarefied ranks of world capitalists. All this
activity is touted as development aid, but all it really develops
is capital. Developing countries face the choice of "aid" that works
against them or isolation.

Neoliberalism is insidious; neoconservatism gets much nastier.
You can think of them as two arms of the mob: the loanshark and
the muscle guys. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia and
Eastern Europe surrendered to neoliberalism, resulting in a drastic
deflation of their economies -- from which Russia, in particular,
has never recovered. That left small, scattered groups of isolated
nations -- the so-called rogue states. What the neoconservatives
believed was that by demonizing those states and flounting American
power they could complete the task of integrating the world's last
holdouts into a single worldwide system dominated by private capital:
a world of the rich, for the rich. In order for this to happen, the
rich needed their own captive state, a service that the increasingly
corrupt US political system provided -- especially in electing George
W. Bush, a man instinctively eager to defend Dubai oil princes against
overwhelming American public opinion.

For the neos Iraq was the jackpot. Its oil reserves were second only
to safely privatized Saudi Arabia, yet it remained stubbornly outside
the system, despite over twenty years of harrassment and isolation. The
neos had no patience to wait for a Soviet-style collapse. They managed
to convince themselves that the US had the power to flip Iraq into the
system, and that the Iraqis would love them for it. There are many
reasons why this couldn't and wouldn't work, but the whole march up
to the war was swallowed up in the falsehoods expedient to sell the
war, a program so unpopular that the neos coulnd't afford to admit,
even to themselves, that the post-war might be even tougher than the
pre-war. But then the neos already had vast experience at rationalizing
the unsavory effects of their past successes.

Until Bush invaded Iraq, neoconservatism was mostly an untested
theory. The credit the neocons took for the collapse of the Soviet
Union is suspicious given that far harsher sanctions on much weaker
countries ranging from Cuba to North Korea to Iraq had failed to do
anything but lower living standards and harden resistance to the
US. Afghanistan didn't prove much either -- the key there was a
diplomatic deal to flip Pakistan, depriving the Taliban of their
crucial international supporters. On the other hand, neoliberalism
has been tested extensively. It is a theory that for the most part
has worked to make the rich richer, at least in the short term.
Of course, if you're not rich, you might think differently -- and
you can point to masses of data that show that neoliberal policies
depress wages, reduce safety nets and worker protections, curtail
government support of infrastructure, and prematurely kill local
businesses that could be real seeds of development.

Even neoliberalism's "rich get richer" dividend needs some
qualification. What the neos try to do is to create a virtuous
circle between wealth and political power, so they appeal most
strongly to the subset of the rich whose wealth depends most on
political connections. Two prime examples are oil, which is based
on a legal claim to a natural resource, and arms, which primarily
sell to states. Those industries are the core of the Bush junta,
with mining, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness and banks
similarly aligned to benefit from political favoritism. The neos,
in turn, have privatized government services to create an industry
that functions as a new patronage system. One thing to recognize
here is that the neos' agenda, in and of itself, is intrinsically
unpopular in America: it serves the special interests of a small
fraction of Americans (and others), and often works against the
best interests of the majority. So politicians like Bush have had
to wrap their neo agenda up in a broader, more popular program of
social conservatism. They've been very successful at that, but the
whole game depends on their ability to convince enough of us that
they know what they're doing and that what they're doing is right.
They've studied carefully enough to know that the essence of sales
is conviction, and that's why they have to keep a straight face --
hence, no admission of mistakes.

This is a long, roundabout way of getting back to the question.
It doesn't make sense that the invasion of Iraq was meant just to
wreck the country and run up gas prices, even though that's about
all they've actually accomplished, for two reasons. The first is
that there were simpler, more surefire ways of accomplishing those
goals -- indeed, twelve years of sanctions and random bombings was
doing a pretty effective job of it. The second is that occupying
Iraq risked a failure of such magnitude that it would expose the
entire conceit of their ideology -- which is pretty much what has
happened, although the magnitude of their failure is only beginning
to sink in. Clearly, the war's architects believe that they could
make their gamble pay off. They had convinced themselves that US
military power packed such shock and awe that Iraqis would sensibly
give up their independence and submit to American direction. They
had convinced themselves that the US political and economic system
was so productive, so superior in principle, that Iraqis would be
happy to lift themselves up through their prescriptions. To say
that they were wrong would be an extreme understatement. They were
fucking insane, which is what happens to crooks whose scams are so
successful their fantasies are freed from any effective checks and
balances.

On the other hand, there's no real evidence that, even faced with
overwhelming evidence of failure, the Bush administration has altered
any of their fundamental goals in Iraq. They've yielded some tactical
ground on democracy, but continue their manipulations to get something
resembling the complaisant government they've always wanted. They still
strike out at anyone who crosses them -- lately the Shiite militias in
addition to whole Sunni cities. They continue to build their "enduring"
bases. Bush has ruled out any discussion of leaving as long as he's
still president. Evidently, they still believe that their plan is the
right one, and that it will succeed unless the folks back home get all
chickenshit and vote them out of office. Meanwhile, the Iraqis fighting
them and otherwise misbehaving are just hurting themselves.

The latter point illustrates one of the neos' most critical traits:
the ability to blame their victims. This both protects their sense of
their own innocent high principles and inures to the consequences of
their acts. The conservative mindset has always assumed that the hard
life of the poor is an inevitable consequence of the human condition.
The neos, by aggressively promoting the interests of the rich, make
the inevitable happen all that much more. It must be nice to blunder
through life with nothing tugging at your conscience. But if they
really had no inkling of the damage they do, you'd think they'd be
less secretive, and less cautious about avoiding the docket in the
Hague.

How much of the destruction of Iraq was caused by Bush's economic
policies as compared to the military occupation is hard to determine.
The policies very quickly put a lot of people out of work, and a lot
of firms out of business, but so did the chaos and terror -- and as
Schwartz pointed out, the brutal repression of dissent tremendously
accelerated the armed resistance and still more brutal repression.
Resistance itself was inevitable, and the surge of looting as soon
as Saddam's regime melted away established chaos as a norm in a way
that the US never got a handle on. The temporary surge in business
as foreigners sold cell phones and used cars wasn't a real bubble
in any economic sense -- it was just another form of looting. Once
the resistance reached critical mass, reconstruction halted, and
with it any chance to stabilize the country. Since then the US has
been far too busy dodging defeat to accomplish anything.

It's easy to become cynical about the use of military force, since
its destructive power is so obvious. If Bush wanted to pound Iraq
back to the stone age, all it would take is a little more of what
they're already doing anyway. But neoliberal economics is a subtler
weapon of mass destruction. Thus far no one has suggested that it
is being wielded for any reason more nefarious than mere greed. The
neos don't deny greed so much as try to rationalize it as an engine
for what little of the common good they can grasp. So it's unlikely
that they meant to destroy Iraq through their economic and political
ideologies. But it's inevitable that they did. And it's essential to
their nature that they deny their culpability and blame the Iraqis
and all those other evildoers who butted in -- the most dangerous
of which are the antiwar masses back home.

Tuesday, April 4. 2006

I just found out that Jackie McLean died on March 31, at his home
in Hartford CT. He was 74 years old, born in 1931. (AMG and other
sources say 1932. I don't know which is correct.) If all you knew
about jazz was what you gleaned from Ken Burns, you probably figured
McLean was little more than Charlie Parker's gofer. Like every other
alto saxophonist of his age -- possibly excepting Lee Konitz -- McLean
chased Bird, but he caught up, both literally and figuratively, then
he worked a health dose of Ornette Coleman into his craft as well.
McLean recorded albums under his own name from 1956 up to 2000, but
his key period was with Blue Note from 1959-67. His skill at adopting
other people's innovations may have left him underrated, but his sound
was uniquely his own -- he had a tight, shrill bite that made him
instantly identifiable -- and few others managed to bridge bop and
avant-garde so effectively. I've long been astonished that he isn't
in Downbeat's Hall of Fame -- even more so that he hasn't
been on the official candidate list. I've written his name in the
last three years running. I can think of other musicians I'd like
to vote for, but until McLean's in they'll have to wait.

The following records are some highlights from McLean's career,
including some key sideman performances. He was extensively documented
by Prestige (1956-57) and Blue Note (1959-67), more erratically by
Steeplechase (1966-74), and rather lightly since then, eventually
returning to Blue Note (1996-99). He also developed a reputation as
an educator, but I know little about that. I've done this quickly,
mostly out of memory. I've skipped a few things I like quite a bit,
and don't have it all -- especially no doubt formative stretches
when he worked for Miles Davis (1951-54) and Art Blakey (1956-57).
But the following records are good starting points:

Lights Out! (1956, Prestige OJC): Prestige's modus
operandi was to record often and cheap. This was the first of nine
McLean cut in a twenty month stretch. A quintet with Donald Byrd,
Elmo Hope, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor. Just turn the recorder on
and let them play some blues or something.
B+

Charles Mingus: Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956,
Atlantic): Already established as a bass great, this established
Mingus as a major composer fearlessly advancing beyond bebop.
McLean may not have agreed with the program, but his shrill alto
provides much of the edge here in a brilliant breakthrough.
A

McLean's Scene (1956-57, Prestige OJC): My favorite
of the period, stitched together from two sessions -- a quintet with
Bill Hardman and Red Garland, and a quartet with Mal Waldron -- for
a bit of variety. Another good choice is The Best of Jackie McLean
(1956-57 [2004], Prestige; re-released as Prestige Profiles
[2005]), which samples the series more liberally.
A-

Charles Mingus: Blues and Roots (1959, Atlantic):
McLean only appeared on two Mingus albums, but both were landmarks --
this one more for the songs, touched by Mingus's nonpareil skill at
taking the tradition and making it not just fresh but dangerous.
A

New Soil (1959, Blue Note): His second session at
Blue Note, a few months after some of the pieces that wound up in
Jackie's Bag. This was to McLean what Giant Steps was
to Coltrane.
A

Swing, Swang, Swingin' (1959, Blue Note): A step
back from the edge into the mainstream, but one of the most ebullient
records anyone ever cut.
A

Freddie Redd: Music From "The Connection" (1960, Blue
Note): McLean was featured in the play and the film -- played a junkie,
something else he learned from Charlie Parker -- as well as on the
soundtrack, which he runs away with. Redd was a west coast pianist,
and they did another fine album together, Shades of Redd (1960,
Blue Note).
A-

Let Freedom Ring (1962, Blue Note): Significant further
advance, especially as McLean takes idea from Ornette Coleman to expand
his range far beyond hard bop. He's the only horn, so he gets a lot of
space to ring.
A

One Step Beyond (1963, Blue Note): The first of
three fascinating albums with trombonist Grachan Moncur III and
vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson -- the third released under Moncur's
name as Evolution (1963, Blue Note).
A-

Destination . . . Out! (1963, Blue Note): Purely
in retrospect this McLean-Moncur collaboration seems surprisingly
mild, partly because Hutcherson is featured liberally, but also
because their "out" has increasingly become our "in" -- the new
mainstream may not contain all of the old avant-garde, but this
mild-mannered innovation is too clever to pass up.
A-

Right Now! (1965, Blue Note): Another typical
sax-heavy quartet, with a lovely turn on a ballad and the usual
set of barn-burners, including two takes of the title piece.
A-

Lee Morgan: Cornbread (1965, Blue Note): Perhaps the
best -- certainly the most famous -- of six Morgan albums McLean played
on. Anthemic hard bop, the hot brass cut by McLean's acid tone. I also
like the tuneful Charisma (1966, Blue Note), but all feature
solid work.
A-

Dr. Jackle (1966, Steeplechase): The first of McLean's
albums on a Danish label that became home for such Blue Note refugees
as Dexter Gordon and Duke Jordan. This was a live set from a club in
Baltimore. McLean is crackling hot here, but the rest of the band are
barely on the same planet.
B+

New and Old Gospel (1967, Blue Note): A program of and
for Ornette Coleman, who joins McLean's quartet but not on his usual
alto sax -- nothing to be gained interfering much less competing with
McLean. On trumpet Coleman combines Donald Ayler chops with a lot more
in terms of ideas.
A-

Live at Montmartre (1972, Steeplechase): Another live
blow-out, this one from Copenhagen on a program heavily laced with
Charlie Parker. Sound is good, form often spectacular.
A-

Jackie McLean/Michael Carvin: Antiquity (1974,
Steeplechase): A very interesting duo -- not just sax-drums, as
both players explore other instruments in their pursuit of ancient
African spirits. A unique items in both musicians' discographies.
How interesting it might have been for McLean to have developed
this direction further.
B+

Mal Waldron/Jackie McLean: Left Alone '86 (1986, Evidence):
McLean and Waldron played together frequently in the '50s, including
their original Left Alone (1959, Bethlehem), but both players
moved far since then. This isn't a duo, but two adventurous veterans
in definitive form.
A

Dynasty (1988, Triloka): A quintet featuring son René
McLean on tenor sax, who wrote four songs to Jackie's two, and sounded
every bit the heir apparent. Brilliantly hot, relentlessly swinging.
A-

Monday, April 3. 2006

Another short, indecisive week of jazz prospecting. The focus this
week has been on keeping the incoming from getting out of hand. Grades
in brackets are first guesses, pending further listening. When said
further listening is done, another note will be posted. I hope to shift
gears the next two weeks and close out the column. At this point I have
enough records to fill it out, including 3-4 pick hit candidates and
several idea for the dud spot. Just don't have all of those things
written up yet.

Erin Boheme: What Love Is (2006, Concord): She could
become a substantial star, but at this point you can still see the
price tags on the fancy packaging. Credits include Hair & Makeup,
Stylist, Art Direction, and Package Design. Nominally a jazz singer,
this is roughly half standards, half originals, the latter co-credits.
Musicians come and go, including four pianists, two guitarists, four
bassists, four drummers, and three conductors for countless strings.
Horns only appear for the lightest of blush, with young stablemate
Christian Scott on trumpet for four cuts and old studio hack Tom Scott
on sax for two. She has a distinctive voice, girlish and coquettish.
B

Taylor Eigsti: Lucky to Be Me (2005 [2006], Concord).
I'd like to think that the capital influx Norman Lear et al. dumped
into Concord is going to be good for jazz -- that somehow they're
going to figure out how to start growing an audience that has been
shrinking pretty steadily, at least in the USA, over the last 50-60
years -- but the odds are that what's good for Concord will be bad
for everyone else. Eigsti is a hot young property -- a 21-year-old
piano whiz on his third album -- and now he's got some money behind
him. The album credits include Grooming and Stylist, so he looks as
good as he sounds. His everyday trio has been replaced by Christian
McBride and Lewis Nash, or by James Genus and Billy Kilson, with
horns and guitar added sparingly. He writes a bit, but mostly works
a repertoire designed more to show his range than what he can do
with it: Coltrane, Porter, Björk, Bernstein, Van Heusen, Eddie
Harris, Mussorgsky, the theme song to The Sopranos -- the
latter done up-tempo with a horn section then slowed down, at odds
with the rest of the album, but I bet Concord has some marketing
data to justify it. By itself, this isn't a bad album, and I'm sure
he's a nice enough kid -- smart, hard working, should have a long,
fruitful life ahead of him. Still, I'm reminded of two things here.
One is that Frank Hewitt, a pianist with subtle skills but great
erudition, never got the major label contract he coveted because
the labels were always looking for young guys who they hoped might
expand the market by attracting young fans instead of serving the
market that jazz actually has. The other is that Eigsti's choice of
a Cole Porter tune, "Love for Sale," begs comparison with another
pianist who tackled the same tune near the start of his career.
That was Cecil Taylor, 47 years ago.
B

Chick Corea: The Ultimate Adventure (2006, Stretch):
Another record, another helping of L. Ron Hubbard. This one is far less
annoying than the last one. It stays away from the fusion cliché of
To the Stars, riding instead on steady waves of percussion,
courtesy of Airto Moreira, Hossam Ramzy, and/or Rubem Dantas. The
other main component here is flute, either from Hubert Laws or Jorge
Pardo. Not sure where this will wind up. Don't even know who does
Corea's hair.
[B]

The Bob Sneider & Joe Locke Film Noir Project: Fallen
Angel (2005 [2006], Sons of Sound): I'm not at all clear
on the concept here -- what these pieces have to do with film noir,
or what film noir has to do with jazz. The purple prose of liner
notes by Allen Coulter and Frank Aloi don't quite parse, let alone
inform. The music, however, has a cool, smoky air, with a range of
instruments -- the leaders' guitar and vibes, John Sneider's trumpet,
Grant Stewart's tenor sax, Paul Hofmann's piano, Phil Flanigan's
bass and Mike Melito's drums -- used sparely. I like it enough I'll
work on it some more.
[B+(**)]

Bob Sneider & Paul Hofmann: Escapade (2004 [2006],
Sons of Sound): It's not much clearer what's going on in this duo, but
my working theory is not a whole lot. Pianist Hofmann has the upper
hand in everything but billing order. More listening might help to
sort out Sneider's guitar, but I doubt that it will make much of a
difference.
B

Jimmy Amadie Trio: Let's Groove! A Tribute to Mel Tormé
(2006, TP): With similar tributes to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett,
Amadie's piano trio is working its way through the standards songbook
much as the singers did -- but without the vocals that defined those
singers. Or maybe there's another connection I'm missing, given that
five of these eight songs are credited to Amadie. I don't have much
to say about him as a pianist, and don't mean any disrespect by that.
It's just that in this case the trio is supplemented by "special guest"
Phil Woods, who sweeps the boards. Woods' days as a bebopper are long
past. When he slowed down he discovered the clean, elegant swing of
Benny Carter. When Woods and Carter played together their sounds were
distinct, but now that Carter's gone Woods feels free to channel --
never more than here.
B+(***)

Michael Carvin: Marsalis Music Honors Michael Carvin
(2005 [2006], Marsalis Music/Rounder): This is one of two new albums
Branford Marsalis has produced featuring important but relatively
unheralded drummers. (The other one is Jimmy Cobb.) Presumably this
launches a series. Certainly there's no shortage of musicians who
could use the commercial clout Marsalis brings to the party. But
the decision to frame both albums as quartets (sax, piano, bass,
drums) takes the focus away from the honored drummers, fudging the
presumed point. Carvin has been working steadily since 1970, with
six previous albums under his own name, plus many appearances. (How
many isn't clear. His website claims "over 150," but I only count
34 on AMG's credits list.) I know him mostly for a 1974 duo album
with Jackie McLean where he pulled out all the stops and played up
a storm. But this one is mild mainstream, with "In Walked Bud" the
most upbeat and a long, slow "You Go to My Head" getting no more
than a light brush treatment. Marcus Strickland plays sax.
B

Jimmy Cobb: Marsalis Music Honors Jimmy Cobb (2005
[2006], Marsalis Music/Rounder): Cobb has fewer albums under his own
name -- this is his 5th -- than Carvin, but is less likely to need an
introduction: Cobb worked for Miles Davis circa Kind of Blue,
in a rhythm section with Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers that also
worked with John Coltrane, Art Pepper, and Wes Montgomery. As with
the Carvin disc, this is a quartet, this time with Ellis Marsalis
on piano, Andrew Speight on alto sax, and Orlando Le Fleming on bass.
There's nothing all that special here but much to like in this -- a
strong swing impulse from both the bass and drums, movement on the
piano, impressive work on sax.
B+(**)

The Skip Heller Trio: Liberal Dose (2006, Skyeways):
Recorded live at the Flying Monkey, Huntsville, AL, but when? Don't
know. My copy is a black cardboard sleeve with a light blue label
wrapped around the spine. Reminds me of old Folkways LP covers, which
may be the point -- first song here is a tribute to Pete Seeger. Other
tributes include Dave Alvin, Emily Remler, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.
Also a dedication to Tom DeLay -- Mahler's "Funeral March" played on
the morning DeLay got indicted. So I like the note sheet, but have
some trouble mapping it to the music. I suspect the Chris Spies' organ,
which neither leads nor follows nor gets out of the way. But when
Heller's guitar overpowers the organ on the Watson piece, I wonder
why he didn't do that sooner. Don't suppose I'll stick with this
long enough to figure that out.
B

Mario Pavone Sextet: Deez to Blues (2005 [2006],
Playscape): Pavone describes this music as upside down, with the
piano and bass carrying the melodic line while the horns provide
counter motion. That's certainly part of it -- especially why
Pavone's bass so often winds up on top, but there's much more
going on with convoluted density of Peter Madsen's piano. Also,
left out of the equation is Charles Burnham's violin, which can
take the high road with Pavone, or more likely the low one with,
or in place of, the horns. The hornmen, by the way, are Steven
Bernstein (trumpet, slide trumpet) and Howard Johnson (tuba,
baritone sax, bass clarinet). They add a lot in small ways but
never threaten to run away with a piece. The opening cuts here
are as stimulating as anything I've heard this year. The later
ones may take more concentration, but the rewards are evident.
And no need to ask what "Second-Term Blues" is about -- what the
blues has always been about: survival. Grade is a baseline. I'll
be auditioning this for a Pick Hit.
A-

Thomas Storrs and Sarpolas: Time Share (2005 [2006],
Louie): Storrs is actually Dave, a drummer based in or near Oregon.
Thomas is Rob, a violinist who lately has been playing with the
String Trio of New York. The Sarpolas are Dick and George, who
play bass and percussion respectively. The latter started out in
Oregon but moved east to New York, where they all hooked up and
spent a few hours improvising in the studio, yielding this album.
It's quite a bit of fun -- dominated by the violin, of course, but
with a lot of bright interplay.
[B+(***)]

Jeannette Lambert: Sand Underfoot (2004 [2006],
Jazz From Rant): Lambert describes herself as a "jazz vocalist/poet" --
I figure the poet came first, but she's worked hard on the jazz end,
and it pays off on one piece where she scats a bit. Her husband,
Michel Lambert, is a drummer, on the free end of the spectrum, and
consistently interesting here. Far better known are bassist Barre
Phillips and pianist Paul Bley, each doing characteristic -- which
of course means excellent -- work here. So there is much of interest
here, but it is partitioned out rather discretely: most cuts are
duos or trios -- only one cut features all four -- with the vocalist
herself appearing on only seven of thirteen pieces.
B+(**)

Carmen Lundy: Jazz and the New Songbook: Live at the Madrid
(2005, Afrasia Productions, 2CD): Don't know her work, but she seems
like a strong, straight jazz interpreter in the Carmen McRae tradition.
The songs don't register all that strongly here, but the band and the
singer are impeccable.
B+(*)

Charles Lloyd: Sangam (2004 [2006], ECM): I rather
cavalierly dismissed last year's Lloyd album, Jumping the Creek,
as just another Charles Lloyd album, but I can't say as I've ever
taken the trouble to figure out just what that means. I don't know
his early records, and don't understand much of what I've read about
them. But he impressed me strongly with Voice in the Night,
cut shortly after he turned 60, and the home-recorded duets with
Billy Higgins (Which Way Is East) was too pleasurable to
kvell over. This one seems too easy: a live recording with two
percussionists -- drummer Eric Harland and tabla master Zakir Hussain.
And I could do without Lloyd's flute or Hussain's singing, although
I don't really mind either, and the percussion with sax is delightful.
[A-]

Anouar Brahem: Le Voyage de Sahar (2005 [2006], ECM):
Oud, piano, accordion. The leader hails from Tunisia, but both of the
other instruments, as well as their musicians, suggest an orientation
north towards Provence rather than south across the Sahara. Manfred
Eicher's productions tend to soften and blur, which may be why Brahem
seems so muted compared to Rabih Abou-Khalil. Or maybe there's some
other reason. Don't have a handle on it yet.
[B]

Jovino Santos Neto: Roda Carioca (Rio Circle) (2005
[2006], Adventure Music): A pianist from Brazil, although he's spent
a good deal of time in the US up around Seattle. The core here is a
piano-bass-drums trio, although Neto also plays melodica, flutes and
accordion, and various guests drop in for extra percussion, mandolin,
guitar, harmonica -- most famous is Hermeto Pascoal for one of his
pieces, but also a pretty good vocalist identified only as Joyce.
Mostly upbeat. Don't have a good feel for it yet.
[B+(*)]

Marcos Amorim: Sete Capelas (Seven Chapels) (2005
[2006], Adventure Music): Brazilian guitarist, in a quartet with bass,
drums/percussion, and flutes (Nivaldo Ornelas). The latter aren't
prominent except on the slow title piece, which leaves me slightly
queasy. On the other hand, the guitar and percussion are vibrant.
[B+(***)]

Roseanne Vitro: Live at the Kennedy Center (2005
[2006], Challenge): I like her Ray Charles record quite a bit,
but this one doesn't make something out of a well worn chestnut
until "Black Coffee" comes around, and then it's over. Playing
at the Kennedy Center must have brought out her good intentions --
the main song sequences includes things like "Please Do Something,"
"Commitment," "Tryin' Times."
B

Janis Siegel: A Thousand Beautiful Things (2006,
Telarc): The band is solidly Latin -- Edsel Gomez (piano), John
Benitez (bass), Steve Hass (drums), Lusito Quintero (percussion),
with Colombian Edmar Castañeda playing "Columbian harp" and Brian
Lynch's brass on two cuts. The songs with one or two exceptions
start elsewhere -- Björk, Stevie Wonder, Anne Lennox, Raul Midón,
Suzanne Vega, Paul Simon -- so the gimmick is to Latinize them,
although you can only be sure when Quintero is on the case, at
which point it becomes obvious. The harp is interesting. The
singer is proficient, but the songs don't amount to much.
B

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further
listening the first time around.

Pat Martino: Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery
(2005 [2006], Blue Note): I go back and forth on Montgomery, without
caring much which way I lean at any given moment. Like Charlie Parker,
he was an innovator and an individualist who loomed so large over his
instrument that he became a standard for emulation -- so much so he
sometimes seems like a plague. If anything Montgomery is even more
ubiquitous today than Parker -- and while secondhand Parker amuses
me, secondhand Montgomery just seems like a shortage of ideas. This
one is especially devoid of ideas -- semi-famous veteran guitarist
plays a bunch of tunes associated with legendary dead guitarist and
if anyone wonders why it's just like the model, well, that's what a
tribute is, isn't it? This is hardly news, but the originals were
better. The saving grace here is that Dave Kikoski gets to pretend
he's Wynton Kelly. Kelly was better too, but Kikoski gets to enjoy
himself more.
B

String Trio of New York With Oliver Lake: Frozen Ropes
(2004 [2005], Barking Hoop): John Linderg and James Emery are constants
for 25 years now, while the violin slot has pretty much annointed the
who's who of the instrument -- Billy Bang, Charles Burnham, Regina
Carter, Diane Monroe, now Rob Thomas. Lindberg is, or should be, well
known from his own albums. But the one I keep noticing here is Emery.
His guitar tends to add color, but in this mix that makes a difference.
And his lead piece, called "Texas Koto Blues," is both the simplest
and the most striking thing here -- you just know Albert King would
get a kick out of it. It's also the one piece where Lake fits in most
seemlessly. Elsewhere he challenges the group, mostly for the better.
B+(***)

Sunday, April 2. 2006

Static Multimedia has posted my April 2006 edition of
Recycled
Goods. They've come up with a new layout where the actual content
is squeezed into small type in a tiny middle column, mostly by the
300-pixel Cingular ad in the right column. The effect is that once
you get past the links and ads all you see is a ribbon of small black
type against a huge white background, and the ribbon goes on and on,
narrowing further in the Briefly Noted. Also annoying is that they
left my name off, although I expect that at least will be fixed before
long. This is one of those things that makes me wonder how good a
vehicle Static is for my column.

I've worked with Static since 2003. Originally I was courted by
Michael Tatum, music editor at the time. He had initially gotten in
touch to help out on the
Robert Christgau website.
I saw it as an opportunity to do something I had long wanted to do:
a reissues consumer guide. I first tuned into popular music in the
early '60s, but didn't take it very seriously until around 1973-75
when I started writing rock crit. I stopped around 1980, but kept
up with new stuff more or less well. The less well period was in
the early '90s, the grunge and gangsta period, when I found it much
more interesting to dig back into the older music I had missed. My
command of jazz and pre-1960 country, blues, and r&b largely
dates from the mid-'90s, when I scoured record guides and made a
serious effort to listen to all of it. The column let me use what
I had learned, plus push it some more. This month's column is the
30th in the series, covering 1254 albums. In addition to whatever
Static has managed to preserve, the columns are available on my
website. This month I've split up
the two index files, one for
artists, the other for
compilations. A project
that always seems to slip further into the future is to collate
these reviews over at
Terminal Zone.

Saturday, April 1. 2006

Some 400 Wichita North and East High School students left class
yesterday and marched downtown to demonstrate opposition to the
anti-immigrant bill passed by the House recently. School officials
are livid, threatening to suspend all the students, or at least any
who didn't have written permission from their parents. A poll (no
scientific claims here) by the Eagle is running 60-40 in favor of
suspension. A typical comment is:

Students who skip school are suspended. That's the law. Breaking
the law, by thinking that students are standing up for themselves in
a political event should not be an exception to this law. . . . There
are many aliens in the US, it's the illegal ones who are questioned.
Illegal means illegal. . . . If aliens want to come to the US, then
do it legally and if they can't or won't then they have no reason to
be here.

This is a pretty simple way of looking at the world -- that's no
doubt a big part of its attraction. Don't like something? Pass a law
against it. That doesn't stop it? Make the punishment harsher, and
the enforcement more certain. Surely some level of penalty and some
degree of willpower will do the trick. This is an idea that is very
attractive to the right, where order means everything and bloodshed
means little. But the world is more complicated and confused than
the view allows. Even murder never vanishes completely, no matter
how rigorously prosecuted. Some people are nuts, some think they
can get away with it, some don't care, some just make the wrong
decision at the wrong moment. But the curious thing here is that
if you took the harsh penalties away, the murder rate might rise,
but not by much. Most people don't commit murder not because they
fear punishment but because they have their own personal rules
against it. But even that isn't consistent across all times and
places: a big part of one's personal rules comes from the social
context one lives in.

Down at the other end of the law and order spectrum, there's
truancy. It may be the law to publish truancy with suspension,
but that strikes me as pretty wrong-headed, even from a sheer
punishment-mad perspective. As I recall, I was truant for about
30% of 9th grade. I never got suspended for that, but frankly
suspension would have made my life a lot simpler. My case may
have been unusual in some respects, but the common denominator
was the realization that school had little if anything to reward
my attendance. So suspension has the perverse effect of punishing
those who benefit from school while liberating those who don't.
That may cause the first group to straighten up and the others
to move on to more antisocial behaviors. But neither case helps
the problem, and we as a society suffer both ways.

The political tantrum over immigration hinges on this same
notion: that illegal immigrants are illegal, a violation of our
law and order, and therefore should be prosecuted to whatever
extent is necessary to get to a point where illegal immigrants
are no more. That is, roughly speaking, the point of the House
immigration bill. The punishment mandated there is very harsh:
an estimated eleven million people would immediately be judged
felons, and anyone who knowingly or otherwise aids any of those
new felons would become accomplices to a felony. If we put the
first group in jail, which is what we normally do with felons,
that would increase the US prison population five times. (Merely
dumping them in Mexico would be like inviting them back.) The
second group is harder to estimate, but would at least decline
as more and more illegals are locked up. There is also something
about building some sort of wall the length of the US-Mexican
border -- a structure comparable to the Great Wall of China,
but presumably more effective.

It's tempting to say that such a law would be insane, but in
fact we already have laws like that on the books: the laws that
prohibit marijuana and other "recreational" drugs. Indeed, there
have long been more illegal drug users in the US than there are
illegal immigrants, so we can estimate some of the effects and
much of the ineffectiveness of the House immigration bill from
what we've seen with drug prohibition. I can't list them all --
that would be another long project -- but I do want to point out
one key problem that is common to both: that many (perhaps most)
people don't really consider the individual drug users or illegal
immigrants they know to be real criminals. This provides networks
of protection that law enforcement only occasionally penetrates,
leading to an arbitrary pattern of enforcement that reinforces
the sense that the law is applied unjustly. This both discredits
the law and leaves the targets of the law -- in both cases they
number in the millions -- outside of its protection, which makes
them more likely to break other laws or to be victims of criminals.
Criminalizing such common and relatively harmless activities not
only increases crime -- it multiplies crime, as the history of
prohibition shows.

But is illegal immigration all that harmless? Aside from the
issues introduced by criminalization itself, there appear to be
two real problems and one phantom problem. One problem is that
immigrants compete for jobs which has the effect of reducing wages,
especially for unskilled labor. The other is that immigrants who
work at low wage jobs tend to use more public services than they
pay for through taxes. Both of these problems are real enough, but
they're unlikely to be very significant except in locales where
illegal immigrants are concentrated. But it's worth noting that
the perception of these problems is heightened because there are
other political forces working both to depress worker wages and
to eviscerate public support programs. Arguing for more liberal
immigration policy by itself makes those problems worse. On the
other hand, immigration adds to the aggregate economy, although
that fact may not be appreciated if the benefits are concentrated
among the rich, as is too often the case.

The phantom problem has to do with the imagined effect that
skewing the American population toward more immigrants might have
on politics, society and/or culture. This is a persistent fear
among the Samuel Huntington set and less intellectual bigots,
but in the US at least such fears have always proven wrong. In
American history, wave after wave of immigrants have arrived
and over the course of a generation or two integrated themselves
into an American mainstream that has changed remarkably little,
except to have been enriched by a slightly broader view of the
world. (In Europe, where so many nations are narrowly defined
by a single ethnic group, this might be less so; on the other
hand, one might note that the French politician who took a
leading role in suppressing, or agitating, the recent round
of "immigrant" riots was himself only slightly removed from
his Polish ancestry.)

The current immigration debate mostly seems to be divided along
two distinct axes. One is economic, ranging from the rich who seek
to profit from depressing labor costs to the native working class
who find their jobs and wages threatened by immigrants. The other
is cultural, ranging from nativists who for one reason or another
seek to isolate the US from the world to liberals who instinctively
react against the racism or chauvinism of the former group. These
axes bisect both political parties, although the Republicans are most
visible because their ends of these two axes are the most activist.
The Democrats tend to be reactive -- not an uncommon situation, and
all too often a confused and dangerous one.

Rich, wage-depressing Republicans have been promoting "guest worker"
programs similar to those used in the Persian Gulf, which legitimizes
imported workers while keeping them on a tight leash -- Bush is very
much in this camp, as is Sam Brownback, although the latter has some
peculiar ideology going on as well. Tom Tancredo has made himself the
leader of the nativist wing, as represented by the House bill. A likely
scenario is a compromise that combines the two -- an extreme crackdown
on illegals combined with enough guest workers to suppress wages -- but
the political weakness of the Bush camp offers the extremists little
incentive to give ground. Indeed, their ability to paint undocumented
immigrants as strictly illegal would melt in compromise, and they're
likely to pick up Democrat votes on economic grounds. On the other hand,
the Bush camp might be just as happy to leave the current non-system as
is: they get the wage suppression effect they want from the illegals.

My own view isn't very well formed. The House bill is obviously
a very dangerous, very wrong-headed proposition: the sweeping
criminalization deprecates law, undermines justice, and promotes
crime; the great wall is expensive, likely to be ineffective, and
above all sends a terrible message to the world. I'm also opposed
to any guest worker program that is more dead-ended than the current
green card system for legal immigration. If we need immigrants, we
should want them to become citizens, and make that possible. The main
problem with the illegals here already is that by being illegal they
don't have adequate legal protection -- they are easily victimized
and have little if any recourse. We need to come up with some way to
give those workers legal status, and we need to make it attractive
enough that the immigrants identify themselves, because we can never
be effective enough at enforcement to solve the problem that way.
Effectively, I'm arguing for some form of "amnesty" -- a word nobody
on any side of the issue wants to be tarred with. The grant shouldn't
be citizenship, but it should allow the immigrants to continue working
but with legal protections.

Once illegal immigrants have a path to become legal, it becomes
much easier to crack down on those who continue to employ illegals.
This takes away much of the "pull" that promote more immigration.
The "push" side, however, is on the other side of the border. Here
US policy has done much to contribute to the problem, especially
in how subsidized US agricultural exports have undermined the wages
of agricultural workers in countries like Mexico. There are many
other aspects to this part of the problem, but the bottom line is
that if Americans truly want to reduce immigration we need to help
provide improvements to the livelihood of those currently tempted
to migrate here. That's a tall order, and can't be fulfilled any
time soon, but that's no reason not to work on it. In the long term
the best solution is to permit free movement of labor, but for that
to work equitably means that all economies must achieve some degree
of equilibrium. Until that happens, national boundaries can act as
baffles which prevent a sudden worldwide rush to the bottom --
provided we have the political smarts to recognize and act on the
need.

But getting back to the original point here, we need to develop
a more realistic sense of law and order. It's foolish to try to
outlaw things that people are going to keep doing anyway -- to do
so just creates more outlaws, which ultimately means more trouble
for all of us. And we can't overcome the impossible by escalating
the enforcement. Proof of this is all around us.